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COMMANDERY 



OF THE STATE OF 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMEEIOA. 




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Toasts and Responses 



X 



Lieut, 



BANQUEItS 

GIVEN 

P n 

I 1 • ±±t 

United States Armv, 




THE MILITARY ORDER 



Lnijal Leginn nF the UnitEd States, 



COMMANDERY OF THE StATE OF ILLINOIS, 



OAI^GH 6, 188S-3. 



Compiled by CAPT. RICHARD ROBINS, Recorder, 
CHICAGO. 






Knight & Leonard, Printers, Chicagc 



BANQUETS 



LiiEut.-Gsn. Shsririan, 



These Banquets were given to Gen. SHERIDAN, 
"Our Commander," to celebrate his Fifty-first and 
Fifty-second birthdays, March 6, 1882-3. 

The Companions assembled at the rooms of the Union 
League Chib, of Chicago, to the number of seventy at 
the first, and ninety at the second banquet. 

The dining hall at both banquets was beautifully 
decorated with flowers and flags, and at the second was 
displayed the General's battle flag which he carried in 
his hand when he leaped the breastworks at Five Forks, 
leading the charge. 

At the second banquet was exhibited an oil painting 
by Earle, representing the General mounted on his horse, 
with his " Battle Flag " in his hand, leaping the breast- 
works as he led the charge at Five Forks. This picture 
was presented to General Sheridan by the Commandery. 

At the hour appointed the Companions marched into 
the dining room, and seating themselves at the tables, en- 
joyed the banquets spread for them. 



CONTENTS, 



Part I — 18S2. 



Portrait ok Gen. Sheridan 
Menu 



First Toast. Response of Gen. Sikonc; 

Response of Gen. Sheridan 

Second Toast. Response of Gen. Chetlain 
Third Toast. Response of Lt. Tuthill . 
Fourth Toast. Response of P.wmaster Wait . 
Fifth Toast. Recitation bv Gen. Fitz Simons 
Sixth Toast. Response of Maj. Paddock . 
Seventh To.\st. Response of Capt. Thoiias . 
Eighth Toast. Response of Col. Jackson . 
Ninth Toast. Response of Gen. Leake . 
Tenth To.\st. Response of Lt. Appleton . 
Eleventh Toast. Response of Maj. Furness . 
First Volunteer Toast. Response of Col. Dickey 
Second Voi.i'nteer Toast. Response of Lt. Russell 
Letters of Regret 



Frontispiece. 



26 
32 
35 
40 
46 
51 
56 



Part II — 18S3. 

Gen. Sheridan at Five Forks Frontisi'Iece. 

Meni- 7 

First Toast. Response of Col. Jackson 15 

Response of Gen. Sheridan 23 

Second Toast. Response of Gen. Leake 25 

Third Toast. Response of Maj. Furness 29 

Fourth To.^st. Response of Surg. Hyde 32 

Fifth Toast. Response of Capt. Otis 39 

Sixth Toast. Recitation by Col. Rundlet 43 

Seventh Toast. Response of Lt. Russell 45 

Eighth Toast. Response of Gen. Beveridge 52 

Ninth Toast. Response of Gen. Stiles 55 

Tenth Toast. Response of Lt. Tuthill 58 

Eleventh Toast. Response of Maj. Huntington 63 

First Volunteer Toast. Response of Lt. Appleton . . . .65 
Second Volunteer Toast. Response of Gen. Stout .... 69 
Letters of Regret 72 



PART I. 



Ib«2 



MILITARY ORDER 

OF THE 

Lnyal LEginn nf the Unite d Statesj 

CaminandBry of the State nf lUinais, 

TO 

lilEUiP.-GEN. gHIIilP Y}. ShBI^IDAN. 

United States Army, 




□ INNER, 

MARSH 6, 1882. 
Unidn League Club House, 

CHICAED, 






^^WASHl^' 



%^9 



TRESIDING AT THE BANQUET, 

COLONEL JOHN MASON LOOMIS, 

Senior Vice-Commander. 



BANQUET committee. 

Brig.-Gen. Wm. E. Strong, Chairman. 
Lieut. Richard S. Tuthill. 
Col. John Mason Loomis. 
Maj. Henry A. Huntington. 
Paymaster Horatio L. Wait. 
Capt. Francis Morgan. 
Brig.-Gen. I. N. Stiles. 



0)B N U. 



Huitres a Fecaille. 



Consomme Financier. 



Saumou, Sauce hollandaise. 

Pommes de terre a la parisienne. 

Concombres. 



Echine de Mouton anglais. 
Petit.* pois, Pommes de terre a la diichesse. 



Poulets a la Stanley. 
Tomates en tranches. 



Ponche a la romaine. 
Cigarettes. 



Coq de bruycre an lard. 
Salade de laitues. 



Brie Roquefort 

Cc'leri. 



Fruit. Cafe' noir. 

13 



So AST S 



FiBST Toast. ...-.- "Our Guest." 

Response by Gen. VVm. E. STRONG. 

Second Toast, ...... "Our Country." 

Response by Gex. A. L. CHETL.-MN. 

Music— "America." 

Third Toast. ... - - "The Regular Army." 

Its history tells^ of 
"A thousand glorious actions that might claim 
Triumphant laurels and immortal fame." 

Response by Lieut. RICHARD S. TL'THILL. 
Music— "Benny Havens, O!" 

Fourth Toast, ..-----" The Navy." 

Its patriotism as deep, its daring as measureless, as the waters upon which it 
lias achieved imperishable renown. 

Response by Paymaster HORATIO L. WAIT. 
Music—" Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean." 

Fifth Toast. - . - - - - "Our Dead." 

"A chosen corps — they are marching on. 

In a wider field than ours ; 
Those bright battalions still fulfill 

The scheme of the heavenly powers; 
And high, brave thoughts float down to us. 

The echoes of that far fight, 
Like the flash of a distant picket's gun 

Through the shades of the severing night," 

DRINK standing AND IN SILENCE. 

Recitation.—" Burial March of Dundee." 
By Gen. CHARLES FITZ SIMONS. 

Sixth Toast, " Our Order." 

Esto perpetua. 
Response by .Major GEORGE L. PADDOCK. 

Music—" Going Back to Dixie." 
14 



So A S T S 



Seventh Toaj-t, . "The Volunteeu Soldiers op the Union Aismt." 

" Unselflsh, iintiniig, 
Intrepifl and true ; 
The bulwark surrounding 
The Eed, White and Blue.'" 

Response by Capt. H. H. THOMAS. 
Music. — "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp." 

Eighth Toast. . - . . "The Armies of the East." 

'• How they charged "mid shot and shell; 

How they bore aloft the banner; 

How they conquered I how they fell."" 

Response by Col. HUNTINGTON W. JACKSON. 
Music— "Garry Owen." 

Ninth Toast, . - . - -'The Armies of the West." 

They subdued fortresses deemed impregnable, and vanquished armies asserted 
invincible. 

Response by Gen. JOSEPH B. LEAKE. 

Music. — " Star Spangled Banner." 

Tenth Toast, . . . "The Last War and the Next." 

"I have noticed that the men who are so 'ready to shed their last drop of 
blood ' are usually very careful about their first." — Davy Crockett. 

Response by Gen. I. N. STILES. 
Music— "Yankee Doodle."' 

Eleventh Toast, . . . "The Girl I Left Behind Mb."' 

" For ye, sae douce, ye smile at this, 
Ye"r naught but senseless asses O ! 
The wisest man the world e'er saw. 
He dearly loved the lasses O ! " 

Response by Ma.ior Wm. ELIOT PURNESS. 

Music— "The Girl I Left behind Me." 

Volunteer Toasts. 
15 



Battles 



Cascade;^ of the Coluinbia, 

Boonevillc. 

Blackland, 

Donaldsou's Cross Roads, 

Baldwin, 

Booneville,. 

Ripley, 

Giintowii, 

Rienzi, 

Perryville, 

Tennessee Campaiijn. 

Stone River, 

Eagleville, 

Fairfield, - 

Winchester, Tenn., 

Cowan Station, 

University, 

Chickamauga, 

Missionary Ridge, 

Chattanooga, 

Dandridge, 

Battles of the Wilderness : 

Todd's Tavern, 

Furnaces, 

Todd's Tavern, No. 2, 

Spottsylvania Court House, . 

Beaver Dam. 

Yellow Tavern, 

Meadow Bridges and Richmond, 

Hanovertown. 

Tolopotoray Creek, 

Hawe's Shop, 

Metadequin Creek, 



April 28, 1856. 
. May 28-29, 1862. 

- June, 1862. 
June, 1862. 

- June, 1862. 
July 1, 1862. 

July 28, 1362. 

Aug. 15, 1862. 

Aug. 26, 1862. 

Oct. 8, 1862. 

Nov. 1862, to Sept. 1863. 

Dec. 31, 1862, to Jan. 3, 1863. 

. March, 1863. 

June 27, 1863. 

. July 3, 1863. 

July .3, 1863. 

. July 4, 1863. 

Sept. 19 and 20, 1863. 

. Nov. 23 to 25, 1863. 

Sept. to Dec. 1863. 

Jan. 17, 1864. 

Mays, 1864. 

. May 6, 1864. 

May 7, 1864. 

- May 8, 1864. 
May 10, 1664. 
May 11. 1864. 
May 12, 1864. 

- May 27 1864. 
May 27, 1864. 

- May 28, 1864. 
May 30, 1864. 



Battles 



Cold Harbor, 

Trevillian Station, 

Mallory's Ford Cross Roads, 

Tunstall Station, 

St. Mary's Ciinrcli, 

Darbytown, 

Lee's Mills, 

Kernstown, 

Toll Gate, .... 

Kabletown. 

Smithfleld Crossing of t\w Opequan, 

Berrj'ville, 

Opequan Creek, 

Opequan, 

Fisher's Hill, 

Tom's Brook, 

Cedar Creek, 

Middletovvn, 

The Winchester Raid, 

Mount Crawford, 

Waynesboro, .... 

North Anna Bridges, 

Ashland, .... 

The Richmond Campaign, 

Dinwiddle Court House, 

Five Forks, 

Scotfs Corners, 

Amelia Court House, 

Jettersville, 

Sailors' Creek, 

Farmville, .... 

Appomattox Depot, 

Appomattox Court House, 



May 31 and June 1, 1864. 
June 11, 1864j_ 
. June 12, 1864. 
June 21. 1864. 
June 24, 1864. 
July 28, 1864. 
July .30, 1864. 
Aug. 11, 1864^ 

- Aug. 11. 1864. 
Aug. 26, 1864^ 

. Aug. 29, 1864. 
Sept. 3, 1864. 

- Sept. 15, 1864. 
Sept. 19, 1864. 

. Sept. 23, 1864. 

Oct. 9, 1864. 

. Oct. 19, 1864. 

Nov. 12. 1864 

Feb. 27 to March 25, 1864. 

March 1, 1865. 

March 2, 1865. 

March 14. 1865. 

March 15, 1865. 

.March 25 to April 9, 1865. 

March 31, 1865. 

April 1, 1865... 

. April 2, 1865. 

April 4, 1865. 

. Aprils, 1865 

April 6, 1865. 

. April 7, 1865. 

April 8, 1865. 

April 9, 1865?" 



O P P IGB F^S, 



COMMANDER. 
Lieiit.-Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, U.S.A. 



SENIOR VICE-COMMANDER. 
Col. John Mason Loomis. 



JUNIOR VICE-COMMANDER. 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Wm. E. Strong. 



RECORDER. 
Capt. Richard Robins. 



REGISTRAR. 

Major Wm. Eliot Furness. 



TREASURER. 

First Lieut. Thomas C. Edwards 



CHANCELLOR. 
Bvt.-Liciit.-CoL Taylor P. Rundlet. 



CHAPLAIN. 
Chaplain Arthur Edwards. 



COUNCIL. 

Lieut.-CoL Chas. W. Davis. Capt. Francis Morgan. 

Paymaster Horatio L. Wait. Capt. David H. Gile. 

Capt. John C. Neelt. 

18 



(Companions, 



FIRST 
Second Lieut. Abbott L. Adams. 
Major William Appleton Amory. 
First Lieut. Samuel Appleton. 
CoL William L. Barnum. 
Major Samuel E. Barrett. 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Luther P. Bradley, 

r.s.A. 

Col. Wesley Brainard. 
First Lieut. David C. Bradley. 
Bvt. -Major Geo. T. Burroughs. 
First Lt. Benjamin H. Campbell. Jr. 
Capt. Eugene Cary. 
Bvt.-Maj.-Gen. Augustus L. Chetlain. 
Bvt.-Lieut.-Col. Haswell C. Clarke. 
Bvt.-Ma.ior Thomas C. Clarke. 
First Lieut. Albert L. Coe. 
Bvt. -Major-Gen. John M. Corse. 
Capt. Simeon H. Crane. 
First Lieut. George Chandler. 
Col. T. Lyle Dickey. 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Arthur C. Ducat. 
Major Clarence H. Dyer. 
Major John A'dams Fitch. 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Chas. Fitz Simons. 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. J.W. Forsyth. U.S.A. 
Bvt. -Capt. Joseph B. Foraker. 
Capt. Geo. M. Farnham. 



CLASS. 
Gen. L'lysses S. Grant. 
Bvt. -Capt. Amos J. Harding. 
Bvt.-Lieut.-Col. James J. Hoyt. 
Bvt, -Major Henry A. Huntington. 
Passed Ass't Surgeon J.Xevins Hyde. 
Bvt.-Maj.-Gen. Rutherford B.Hayes. 
Bvt.-Maj. Gurdon S. Hubbard. Jr. 
Bvt.-Maj.-Gen. Rufus Ingalls, U.S.A. 
Bvt. -Lt. -Col. Huntington W. Jackson. 
Bvt.-Major Wm. Le B. Jenney. 
First Lieut. James Howard Jenkins. 
Bvt.-Lt.-Col.E.B.Knos U.S.A. (ret'd) 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Joseph B. Leake. 
Major-Gen. John A. Logan. 
Major-Gen. jNIortimer D. Leggett. 
First Lieut. Theodore W. Letton. 
Bvt.-Major Geo. Mason. 
Capt. Roswell H. Mason. 
Capt. John T. McAuley. 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Alex. C. McClurg. 
First Lieut. John McLaren. 
Bvt.-Major William A. McLean. 
Capt. John G. :McWilliams. 
Bvt.-Major Lewis B. Mitchell. 
Capt. William A. Montgomery. 

Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Wm. Myers, U.S.rt. 
19 



(Companions 



FIRST CLASS. 



Bvt. -Lieut. -Col. J. J. McDermid. 

Major and Surg. O. W. Nixon. 

Capt. Ephraim A. Otis. 

Major George L. Paddock. 

First Lieut. Henry T. Porter. 

Bvt. -Major Sartell Prentice. 

Acting Ass't Paymaster G. S. Redfield 

Capt. Charles D. Rhodes. 

Major and Surg. E. O. F. Roler. 

First Lieut. John W. Rumsey. 

Major Henry A. Rust. 

Capt. Israel P. Rumsey. 

Second Lieut. Martin J. Russell. 

Bvt.-Lieut.-Col. Edmund R.P.Shurly, 
U.S.A. (ret'd). 

First Lieut. Joseph J. Siddall. 

Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. I. N. Stiles. 



First Lieut. John W. Streeter. 
Bvt.-Major Harry L. Swords. 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Joseph L. Stockton. 
Bvt.-Col. Edgar D. Swain. 
Bvt.-Col. -Alexander F. Stevenson. 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. John L. Thompson. 
First Lieut. Edward N. K. Talcott. 
First Lieut. Richard S. Tuthill. 
Capt. Horace H. Thomas. 
First Lieut. BenjamiuW. Underwood. 
Col. Nathan H. M^alvvorth. 
Bvt.-Col. Deming N. Welch. 
Capt. James C. White. 
Bvt. -Major-Gen. Julius White. 
Bvt. -Lieut. -Col. James R. Willett. 
Lieut. -Col. Arba N. Waterman. 



SECOND CLASS. 
First Lt. Arthur C. Ducat, Jr.. U.S.A. | Mr. Edwards Corse. 



THIRD CLASS. 



Hon. E. B Washburne. 



I Hon. Ezra B. McCagg. 
20 



TOASTS AND RESPONSES. 



The literary portion of the Banquet now being in 
order, the Presiding Officer, Col. John Mason Loomis, 
Senior Vice Commander, announced the Regular Toasts. 

First Toast. "Our Guest." 

Response by 

^bt.-§rig.-Q3cn. Mm. (f. Strong, ®. ^. ^)ols. 

Mr. Commander and Companions: America has pro- 
duced the highest type of public men the world has ever 
seen. For a century we have stood unparalleled with 
our immortal Washington. For twenty years the world 
has bowed in awe before the majestic figure of Abraham 
Lincoln. 

I speak to-night of a subaltern, of the commander of a 
regiment, brigade, division, corps, army — of one who 
could always be found where the battle raged fiercest 
and the dead lay thickest — of one who is preeminently a 
man of the people. 

Around every patriotic fireside from the New England 
Hills to the Golden Gate, beyond the seas in every land 
and every clime his deeds are household words. 

Why do orators speak in glowing eulogy of his services ? 
Why do musicians sing his praises, and poets tell the 
marvels of his history .'' 



BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 



It is because around his life and military career there 
cluster the most stirring memories of march, battle and 
campaign ! It is because of shattered columns rallied and 
defeats turned into victories ! of deeds of knightly valor 
on scores of memorable fields ! It is because of his 
supreme influence over the men he commanded at the 
critical moment in battle ! " If the column wavered, he 
led it. If it halted he sent the music to the front, and 
with drawn saber and uncovered head himself rode down 
the line," and it moved on with irresistible force and 
always, always to victory ! If a mounted trooper reeled 
in his saddle the ringing voice of his commander might 
be heard distinct and clear above the roar of the conflict, 
" Steady there, it's all right ! " and the soldier wounded 
perhaps to death and with his life blood ebbing away at 
each throb of his heart, regains his seat by a mighty 
effort of his will, clutches his saber with a dying grip, keeps 
his place in ranks, preserves the battle line and then falls 
dead from his saddle within the enemy's works ! It is 
because of all these grand and glorious recollections 
which warm the blood and stir the heart ! It is because 
of his brilliant service to his country in her hour of peril 
and need ! 

There is no one living in America to-day who is closer 
to the hearts of the veteran soldiers, more loved, more 
idolized than the one of whom I speak. There is no one 
closer to the hearts of the whole American people. 

We prize his friendship as the greatest honor and pleas- 
ure of our lives. Gentle and tender and modest as a 
woman — trusty and true everywhere and always. 

We know his aversion to words of praise, and never be- 
fore have we trespassed upon his feelings, but on this 



GKN. STRONG S RESPONSE. 



private occasion, we his friends and admirers, claim the 
right — demand the right to speak of him as our hearts 
dictate and he must listen if never again. It is one of 
the penalties of being great. 

For a moment let us glance at a few of the illustrious 
commanders of whom history tells. 

Alexander, Caesar, Pyrrhus, Scipio, Sertorius, the extent 
of whose conquests and the splendor of whose exploits 
surpass all other heroes of their time. Hannibal, who 
with his Numidian horse overthrew the chivalry of Rome 
at Cannse and left 40,000 Roman dead upon the field. 
Cromwell, who led that invincible charge of his Ironsides 
at Marston Moor, the hero of Naseby, of Dunbar and 
of Worcester. Frederick II of Prussia, who defeated 
the Austrians on the bloody field of Leuthen, which 
battle has been pronounced a master piece. The Duke 
of Wellington, whose battles were like the heavy blows of 
the battering ram that strike straight and hard. Henry 
of Navarre, who electrified his army by the words, " Be- 
hold the enemy! If you lose sight of your ensigns rally 
around my plume ! " and straightway led it to victory at 
Ivry. 

Granted that they commanded immense armies — killed 
and wounded countless numbers — conquered vast terri- 
tories — brought grief and distress to millions of homes. 
Granted that they were mighty warriors and the greatest 
generals of the days in which they lived. Grant all that 
history claims for them, we must not forget that most of 
them fought with mailed steed and chariot, battle axe and 
spear, breast plate and helmet, cross bow and match lock, 
and that centuries have added much to the luster of their 
fame. 



24 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

Search their history and tell me if you can find any- 
thing grander, more stirring, more splendid than the 
record of the soldier of whom I speak, among the dark 
cedars at Stone River; in the defiles and forests of Chick- 
amauga; on the slopes of Missionary Ridge before the 
frowning heights of Lookout ; in that long list of fierce and 
bloody encounters from the crossing of the Rapidan to 
Cold Harbor and Trevillian Station ; in that marvelous 
series of victories over Early in the Valley of the Shenan- 
doah, ending on the historic field of Cedar Creek, and 
crowning all with a halo of glory, those matchless strokes 
in the last campaign, heavy, hard and in quick succession, 
unequaled in all history, among which stand out in bold 
relief the memorable names of Dinwiddie, Five Forks, 
Amelia Court House, Jettersville, Sailors Creek, Ap- 
pomattox. Can you find one in all the list firmer, more 
tranquil, more stubborn in resistance, more dashing, bril- 
liant, vehement, or obstinate in attack? Can you find 
one whose plans were better laid or better executed, or 
who surpassed him in skill, strategy and all the science of 
war ? 

Shall we compare him to Napoleon's great captain and 
fearless rider with his plumed hat and uniform of scarlet 
and gold, at the head of the French cavalry, the terror of 
all Europe? No! Murat will not bear the comparison. 
Murat's character will not bear inspection. Besides he 
was only a soldier. He was only a cavalry leader. 

Take Napoleon himself, reputed the greatest general 
that has ever lived. His greatness in the fierce light of 
history is growing smaller and his smallness is growing 
greater every day. Scan his field of operations and see 
how, in defiance of all the rules of war he spread his thin 



GEX. SI ROX(i s RESPONSE. 



25 



line of disaffected myrmidons from the Neimen and the 
Skager Rack to the Tagus and the Guadalquiver and left 
450,000 of them and 900 cannon in the snows of Russia. 
Once this was called greatness. We who have lived in 
the field near the enemy know that it was folly and 
imbecility. He stands in history to-day the direst of all 
failures. His test was success and he took France free 
and victorious, the greatest and most powerful of nations, 
the admired and envied of the world, and left her con- 
quered, enslaved, ruined and trodden by half a million 
foreign soldiers, and his own people said of him as with 
one voice, " Enough of Bonaparte." 

From lieutenant to the command of an army — from the 
Cascades of the Columbia to Appomattox, the means of 
the man of whom I speak were adapted to his ends. His 
genius is the embodiment of common sense applied to 
war. Measured by Napoleon's test of success Napoleon 
falls — this hero rises. History will be fatal to the one 
and immortal glory to the other. The American people 
will never say, " Enough " of the man of whom I speak. 

* * * "'Tis much he dares; 
Aurt to that dauntless temper of his mind 
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valor 
To act in safety."' 

Down through history, through countless ages yet to 
come his name will be inscribed high up on the roster of 
the world's great generals. 

We gather here to do honor to this soldier on his fifty- 
first birthday. Time has touched him lightly. Clasping 
hands around this festive board and with the dear, grand 
memories of the old days thronging thick and fast upon 
us and with hearts beating in sympathy and in unison we 



26 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

tender him a soldier's love, a soldier's greeting. Many 
and happy be his years — rich with all the honors a grate- 
ful Republic can bestow. 

And now comrades fill your glasses to the brim, rise 
and drink with me the health of one of the grandest 
soldiers of the age, the incomparable leader of men, our 
friend, our companion, the commander of this Military 
Order and its honored guest, Lieutenant-General Philip 
H. Sheridan. 

In answer to loud calls and cheers for " Our Com- 
mander," 

rose and said : 

Comrades of the Loyal Legion of the Commandery 
OF THE State of Illinois : 
I regret exceedingly that I cannot properly express to 
you my high appreciation of the compliment paid me on 
this occasion, by this sumptuous and charming dinner. 
To be well thought of by comrades who were by my 
side, or serving in sister armies, in the great struggle for 
human freedom and national existence, is a satisfaction 
which fills my heart with pride. I know that this kind 
consideration to me is not due to the fact that I am 
the President of this Commandery, but a tribute to the 
services I rendered to our beloved country during the 
time of her great need. But while you seem to be 
willing to accord to me high praise, I, at least, do not 
forget that a general, no matter how brilliant may be his 
military genius, is nothing without good officers and men. 



(;EN. SHERIDAN S RESPONSE. 27 

I am, therefore, comrades, willing to bow my head and 
acknovvledge that what has come to me has been by the 
assistance of such gallant officers and men as are repre- 
sented here to-night by this commandery. There never 
was, in my judgment, so effective a body of officers and 
men as the armies of the Union at the close of our 
rebellion. It has been my fortune to have witnessed the 
hostile operations of large bodies of trained soldiers in 
Continental Europe, since the close of our war, and, 
while they were steady under fire, youthful in looks, 
handsomely uniformed and well equipped, they had not 
the experience or the resources of the ragged veterans 
who marched through Washington at the close of 
the war. 

It may be proper, considering the occasion, to refer to 
myself, and I will, therefore, say that I came home from 
among the Indians along the Columbia River, in the 
distant state of Oregon, some eight months after the war 
of the rebellion had commenced, having just been pro- 
moted from a First Lieutenant to the rank of Captain, 
and with the love of my country dearest in my heart. I 
was young, healthy and vigorous ; so well hardened by 
my mountain service, it now seems to me, when I look 
back on what I went through, that I must have been 
almost insensible to fatigue. I became the Chief Quar- 
termaster and Chief Commissary of the Army of the 
Southwest, and carried that army forward until after the 
battle of Pea Ridge. I then returned, and by links 
which it would be too tedious on this occasion to dwell 
upon, found myself at Shiloh, three or four days after the 
famous battle there, when I became the Colonel of the 
Second Michigan Cavalry. I had never seen the regi- 



28 BANQUETS TO LI. -GEN. SHERIDAN. 

nient, had never met any of the officers, except Major 
Alger and the Quartermaster, and only met them when 
they brought me the telegram announcing me as the 
Colonel of the regiment. I was made its Colonel on the 
morning of the day I joined the regiment, which was after 
dark, and at nine o'clock p.m. marched with it on the 
Booneville raid, and burned the trains in rear of the rebel 
army at Booneville. An opening had now come, and I 
believed I could make the most of it, by being an honor- 
able, truthful soldier. I knew no one in authority to 
help me, and if I had, I think I would have preferred to 
rely on myself and the men and officers I commanded, 
for any future which might come to me. I, therefore, 
thought I would make the best Colonel I could, without 
looking for anything higiier, unless I could win it. Suc- 
cess so far attended me that in less than one month I was 
a Brigadier-General of Volunteers. When I became a 
Brigadier-General I thought I would make the best one I 
could. A division of infantry came to my command, in 
what afterward became the old Army of the Cumber- 
land, and that division made me Major-General before 
the year was up, December 31st, 1863, at Stone River. 
While in command of this old division, Chickamauga, 
Missionary Ridge, and the campaign into East Ten- 
nessee came on, in all of which the division did so well, 
that I was transferred to the Army of the Potomac, to 
command the magnificent cavalry corps of that army. 
With it I led the advance of Grant's victorious army 
through the Wilderness and down to Petersburgh. Still 
retaining the command of the cavalry corps, which I did 
until the end of the war, I was transferred to the Valley 
of the Shenandoah, to command the army of that name. 



(IF.X. SHERIDAN S RESPONSE. 



For the first battle fought, I was made Brigadier-General 
in the Regular Army, and for the third battle, just one 
month afterward, I was made a Major-General in the 
Regular Army. 

Events went on, and in the early spring of 1865, 
abandoning, temporarily, the command of the Mid- 
dle Military Division and the Army of the Shen- 
andoah, I put myself at the head of the cav- 
alry corps, and started to join Sherman's army, in 
South Carolina, but failing to cross my command over the 
James River, on account of high water, I thought I would 
do the next best thing, and go down and join Grant at 
Petersburgh, and again led the advance of the Armies of 
General Grant, on the last campaign against Lee. You 
all know, comrades, what occurred on that campaign. 

My friends, by following my remarks, you will see that 
the cavalry made me a Brigadier-General, in the volun- 
teer service at Booneville ; then the infantry, a Major- 
General, at Stone River. The cavalry and infantry at 
the battle of Opequan, near Winchester, made me a 
Brigadier-General in the Regular Army, and the cavalry, 
infantry and artillery, at Cedar Creek — commonly known 
as the battle of Winchester — made me a Major-General 
in the Regular Army, and it was to me, while in command 
of cavalry and infantry, that the white flag was presented 
at Appomattox, in token of surrender of the Army of 
Northern Virginia, commanded by General Lee, on the 
morning of April 9th, 1865. 

All these promotions and successes came to me, and I 
now say, before this Commandery, that there is not a 
scrap of paper existing which will show that I ever asked 
for any one of them. They were won for me by the 



30 BANQUETS TO LT.-GKN. SHERIDAN. 

troops I had the honor to command. It has been said 
that I was rash ; that I was dashing and reckless. I say 
in reply that there never was an officer more careful 
of his troops. I never lost a man without a just equiva- 
lent, if I could help it. There never was an officer who 
was more painstaking to obtain information of the 
enemy, his strength and his intentions, than I was. I took 
good care of my men. I encamped them well. I 
watched their rations and their comforts, and when we 
fought the enemy I showed the men the confidence of 
victory from my knowledge of the enemy, and my confi- 
dence in them. I probably should not speak so much 
about myself, but it should be remembered that 1 was the 
Chief Quartermaster and the Chief Commissary of the 
Army of the Southwest, at the battle of Pea Ridge ; a 
cavalry commander in Mississippi, with the Army of the 
Tennessee ; an infantry commander in Kentucky and 
Tennessee, with the Army of the Cumberland ; a cavalry 
commander in Virginia, with the Army of the Potomac ; 
an infantry and cavalry commander in the Valley of the 
Shenandoah, and a cavalry and infantry commander in 
the last campaign against Lee, ending at Appomattox ; 
that I was constantly changing from one arm of the 
service to another, and constantly changing from different 
sections of the country to others, with new lines of 
operations to study and operate on, new men to com- 
mand, who had no acquaintance with me ; that I had to 
overcome the natural jealouses of sections, and the jeal- 
ousies engendered from an infantry officer commanding 
cavalry. 

All my war commissions, comrades, have the date of a 



GEN. Sheridan's response. 



battle, except my present one of Lieutenant-General, 
which was given for all. 

Thanking you, gentlemen, for your patience with me 
in this personal recital, I will now give place to others, 
who can better entertain you. 



32 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

Second Toast, "Our Country." 

Response by 

Mr. Commander and Companions: The theme 
which your committee has assigned to me is a broad and 
comprehensive one — so broad and so comprehensive that 
I can but touch upon it, in the brief time allotted me to 
speak. 

Our country to-day embraces within its limits the finest 
part of the best continent on the globe. Its people are 
without doubt the most intelligent, enterprising, progres- 
sive and prosperous to be found, and its history is full of 
thrilling interest to all peoples who love liberty and 
desire the blessings of good government. 

Two and a half centuries ago a few feeble colonies 
planted themselves on the very verge of this continent) 
and struggled heroically against privation, famine and the 
attacks of hostile savages. A century ago these colonies 
had grown into a nation of over 3,000,000 souls. They 
were a brave. God-fearing and liberty-loving people. Un- 
willing to endure the oppression of the mother country,^ 
they rebelled, and having successfully resisted her power, 
at the end of a long and bloody war, declared themselves 
a free and independent nation, and founded a govern- 
ment whose corner stone was liberty and equality. Over 
three-fourths of a century of unexampled prosperity fol- 
lowed. From 3,000,000 the nation increased to nearly 
40,000,000. An irrepressible conflict between slavery 
and liberty had, however, been going on with more or less- 



GEN. CHETLAIN S RESPONSE. 



bitterness during all these long years, and that conflict 
finally culminated in the great war for the suppression of 
the rebellion. In the effort to suppress that rebellion, in- 
augurated by the slave power, the government acted 
purely in self-defense. It uttered its wail of peril, it pub- 
lished to its sons its danger, and called upon them to fly 
to its rescue; and can any of us ever forget the response 
to that call, so prompt, so wide-reaching, so determined.-' 
The world never before saw such an army. An army 
that contained so much of the intelligence, of the culture, 
of the skill of the nation. In that terrible struggle was 
involved all that was dear to the lovers of liberty. The 
noblest government ever reared by human ingenuity was 
thrown into jeopardy. The grand old ship of the Union 
was forced toward ruinous breakers. The winds were 
madly struggling to sweep it against the reef of disintegra- 
tion. But the valorous men who heard the call of the 
nation's dauntless chief to come to the rescue, flung 
themselves between the government and the dangers 
gathering thickly about it, and it zuas saved. This nation, 
once partly free and partly slave, emerged from the con- 
flict ^'■/-(s;;^^/)/ and gloriously free — free from its center to its 
remotest bounds. 

All the lessons which come from the past are valuable 
to us, and none more so than those which are connected 
with our late internal conflict. Renewedly are we taught 
that in complete union lies the greatest strength. 

If when divided we could accomplish so much, what 
may we not gain for liberty, humanity and right, when 
there is no discord within our borders. We are taught, 
moreover, the mighty power which centers in a true love 
of liberty. Our brave sons fought not from compulsion, 
but from free choice, because each had an interest at 



34 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

Stake. Despotism forces its subjects to war. Liberty 
fascinates its friends to her defense. 

We know the past and the present of our country. 
Proud as we are, and justly so, of our country's greatness, 
what shall be said of its future.'' We have unfailing faith, 
and believe that its future will be as its past, only replete 
with all that can make a nation prosperous and great. 
And yet many earnest and patriotic men in the land feel 
a deep solicitude for our country's future. At least three 
great dangers are believed to threaten it. The con- 
centration of vast wealth in the hands of favored individ- 
uals ; the growth of gigantic monopolies, and the inevita- 
ble conflict between labor and capital in the near future. 

These loom up like a dark cloud on the horizon, and it 
will require the united effort of the wisest and best men 
in the nation to avert the dangers, and carry the country 
intact through them. Our hope lies in the patriotism of 
our people. The great heart of the nation has been, is, 
and ever will be loyal to the principles that underlie our 
government. Guided by the hand of a beneficent and 
allwise Providence, our ship of state will, we con- 
fidently believe, be borne across the perilous sea into a 
harbor of safety. 

* * " Sail on, oh Ship of State, 
Sail on, oh Union strong and great ; 

Humanity with all its fears, 

With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate. 



Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee ; 

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears ; 

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears. 
Are all with thee." 



LT. TUTHILL S RESPONSE. 



Third Toast, " The Regular Army." 

Its history tells of 
" A thousand glorious actions that might claim 
Triumphant laurels and immortal fame." 

Response by 

fxxst ft. Eiclr.irt) §. (Tutbill, ^l. ^. Dols. 

Gentlemen : When first informed that it was the 
order of " the powers that be " that I should to-night 
respond to the toast, " The Regular Army," I was much 
inclined to demur, and insist that some one of you gen- 
tlemen more familiar with the Regular Army, its history 
and traditions than I, should speak for it on this occasion. 
There is our illustrious commander. Gen. Sheridan, since 
his school days at West Point, a Regular, who could tell 
us many interesting things about it learned at " Benny 
Havens, O," on the plains fighting Indians, or on a hun- 
dred battle fields of the Rebellion, performing there deeds 
of generalship and valor such as elicited the admiration 
and plaudits of his country and the world. There is his 
friend and staff officer, Gen. Forsyth, who could, with a 
humor that has so often convulsed you, give us personal 
reminiscences of a lifetime spent in the regular service, 
which I am sure would furnish a far better after-dinner en- 
tertainment than it is in my power to offer you. Again, 
there is our honored friend and Senior Vice Commander, 
Col. Loomis, who has so often sung for us that stirring 
heroic poem which treats in detail of the organization, 
equipment, achievements and glorious history, etc., etc.. 



36 BANQUETS TO I.T.-OEX. SHERIDAN. 

of the Regular Army, whose "officers are fighting men." 
Why was he not selected to respond to this toast.? I was 
not a Regular. Old Gen. used to say when repri- 
manding one of his soldiers for some breach of discipline, 
" Are you going to make a blasted volunteer of yourself.'' " 
I was only a "blasted volunteer." (I am not one to-night.) 
I learned, however, enough of army discipline while a 
volunteer to know that it is the first duty of a soldier to 
obey orders, and so I suppose I must. 

It may not have occurred to any of you that it is no 
easy thing to speak fluently, entertainingly, instructively 
or eloquently on a theme concerning which you know 
nothing. I am bound to confess that more than once I 
have been somewhat embarrassed to know just what to 
say under such circumstances. Fearing I might find my- 
self so situated to-night, I resolved to visit the Public 
Library and "cram," as the boys call it, on "The Regu- 
lar Army." I happened, with what seemed rare good luck, 
to run across the works of a distinguished officer in the 
Engineer Department of the United States Army, some- 
time serving on the Pacific Coast — Capt. Geo. H. Derby, 
who is better known to the literary world under the iioin 
lie plume John Phoenix. From this author I hoped to 
gain valuable knowledge as to the services of the Regular 
Army, and something also of the organization of armies, 
their composition, etc., and especially of our own Regular 
Army. Coming to the chapter which treats of the 
"Composition of Armies," I was sure I had before me the 
knowledge needed in order to instruct and edify a dis- 
criminating audience, such as I see before me. Squibob's 
dissertation on the infantry and cavalry branches of the 
army struck me as somewhat novel, to say the least. I 



LT. TUTHILI. S RESPONSE. 37 

was not, however, prepared to dissent from positions taken 
by so eminent a member of the Topographical Engineers 
as Capt. Derby. It seemed to me, in fact, that many of 
his suggestions were very sensible. For instance, he says, 
" And first with regard to the composition of armies for 
offensive operations in the field. For this purpose let a 
body of men between the ages of eighteen and forty-five 
be selected, if for immediate active service blacks should 
be selected as being undoubtedly more offensive than 
whites." Thus I learned for the first time that the coun- 
try is indebted to an officer in the Regular Army — a 
Southern-born man, too, — for the idea of arming the 
blacks — a measure which years afterward the government, 
in its hour of extremest danger, hesitatingly, but, as is 
admitted by all now, wisely adopted. 

Proceeding with my study of the learned and scientific 
treatise I have above referred to, I was much struck with 
the author's suggestions of an improved artillery service. 
Having myself been in that corps I felt that I was quali- 
fied to form some intelligent opinion as to the value of 
the improvements recommended. I know you will thank 
me for calling to your attention views which struck me as 
certainly original with the author. He says, "When fly- 
ing artillery is used in connection with these troops 
(infantry armed and equipped as previously recommended 
by him) it will consist of four and six-pound field pieces 
carefully strapped on the backs of stout jackasses, and 
pointed to the rear. These being fired, the recoil will 
arouse all the natural obstinacy of the animal, who, think- 
ing he is pushed forward, will instantly move stern first 
with incredible celerity toward the enemy. When a re- 
treat is ordered, the men serving the guns will pull the 



38 BANQUETS TO I.T.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

beast's tail, who will immediately change his motion and 
rush forward with impetuosity. It is thus," the author 
thoughtfully observes, "that man shows his supremacy 
over the brute creation, in rendering even their evil dis- 
positions subservient to his designs." 

I cannot tell what you think of it. I am bound to 
confess that after a careful perusal of Capt. Derby's treat- 
ise, notwithstanding on its title page it was dedicated 
" To Gen. Geo. B. McClellan, the friend and classmate of 
the author," a very eminent military authority and soldier, 
I had serious doubts as to whether the writer was quite 
in earnest. And so it was I said I would read no more, 
but after telling you of my search for information bearing 
upon the subject of the toast, I would say of the Regular 
Army a few things which every American boy knows all 
about. 

Washington may fitly be called the father, not only of 
his country, but as well of the Regular Army. With the 
clear sight of a great general, he foresaw that, while a 
large standing army was to be feared as hostile to that 
civil liberty he and his compatriots of the Revolution had 
so gloriously struggled to establish in America, a well 
organized, thoroughly disciplined, though small, body of 
regular troops was absolutely essential to the preservation 
of that same liberty, whether from foreign aggressions or 
internal strife. He urged upon Congress the organiza- 
tion of a body of Regular troops, to be kept constantly in 
the service and pay of the newly formed nation, and the 
establishment by the Government of a military academy 
for the instruction of young men in the science and art of 
war, in order that when war should come the Government 
might have men to organize its armies, transforming its 



LT. TUTHILL S RESPONSE. 



patriotic citizens into intelligent soldiers, supplementing 
patriotic valor by military knowledge and making thus an 
army not of military machines, but of individual heroes. 

The handful of men and officers, known as the Regular 
Army, has made for itself a history uniformly splendid. 
Without boasting, without commendation, often the butt 
of demagogues in Congress and on the stump, it has done 
and done well all that the country called upon it to do. 
In all the wars in which our country has been involved, 
it has acted a glorious part. Whether at New Orleans, at 
Lundy's Lane, at Palo Alto, Buena Vista and Mexico, in 
the Everglades of Florida, in the war with treacherous 
savages on our western frontier, which has been continu- 
ous from its first organization down to the present time, 
or in the terrific conflicts of our civil war, the Regular 
Army, its officers and men have done their whole duty, 
and have carried our country's flag full high advanced to 
unvarying and glorious victory. 



40 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 



Fourth Toast, "The Navy." 

Its patriotism as deep, its daring as measureless, as the waters 
upon which it has achieved imperishable renown. 

Response by 
|apraslcr f oratio f . Mnxi, late l\. *. f. 

The patriotism and daring of the men whose bold 
deeds created our navy, and wrung reluctant admissions 
of its superiority from the navies of the old world, also 
created for it such a prestige, and such a profound respect 
for the American Ensign in foreign ports, that the tradi- 
tions thereof continued down to the time of the outbreak 
of our great Rebellion. 

When that irrepressible conflict was actually com- 
menced, however, the Nation awakened to a realizing 
sense of the awkward fact that our navy consisted mainly 
of traditions, for of the nominal force of ninety vessels 
borne on the Navy Register, only nine were efficient war 
ships of the best modern type, and most of these had 
been purposely sent to foreign stations, and only one 
vessel was available for immediate service. The National 
Government found itself confronted with the enormous 
task of patrolling a hostile coast line of over two thousand 
miles, and of blockading over fifty Rebel ports and inlets, 
in addition to the increased necessity for cruisers in 
foreign waters to protect the American shipping interests, 
which had been so prosperous. Our finest clipper ships 
were lying idle in foreign ports, because tiniid shippers 
dared not trust their precious freights in American bot- 



PAYMASTER WAIx's RESPONSE. 41 



toms, and Raphael Semmes boasted that he found in the 
port of Singapore alone, twenty-two of our Yankee 
clipper ships thus tied up. We had no suitable war 
ships with which to prevent this, and the Kearsarge, that 
finally sank Semmes' piratical craft, was inferior to the 
Alabama, in number of guns. Our best officers were 
chafing under an enforced inactivity, simply because 
there were no suitable men o' war for them to sail in. 
Farragut, Rowan, Rodgers, AVorden, and many others 
were all thus inactive, when the great emergency called 
them into activity and gave full scope for the display of 
that enterprise and ingenuity with which they soon 
astonished the country, and confounded its enemies. 

At that time it took two or three years to construct and 
equip a large war ship. We wanted ships instantly. 
What was to be done ? They could not be bought. 
We must create them ; and we did. Twenty sea going 
gun boats were built in ninety days, which did good 
service for several years, though they were all used up 
and condemned by the end of the war. Cruisers and 
Ironclads were constructed as rapidly as possible, and 
in the meantime all the available water craft of the 
northern ports were pressed into service for fighting pur- 
poses, from the great passenger steamers, so extremely 
unfit for the purpose, down to the harbor tugs. Even the 
old New York ferry boats had heavy guns put on them, 
and went boldly to sea, and, strange to say, under the 
adroit management of skillful officers, were actually made 
to render efficient service. In two years our navy was 
increased from forty vessels actually in commission, to 
over five hundred vessels. 

This task of creating a navy fell largely upon the naval 



42 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

ofificers, for the resources of our few, meagerly equipped, 
navy yards were utterly inadequate to the work, and the 
labor was mostly done by artisans unfamiliar with what 
was needed, under the personal direction of the officers 
themselves, who, with their own hands, helped to adapt 
and equip for fighting purposes the ungainly and often 
ridiculous old craft in which they afterward fouglit so 
well, and with such substantial results. In such a craft 
as this, the old Varuna, the gallant Boggs fought at Forts 
Jackson and Phillip, until she sank from under him, but 
not until she had destroyed six rebel vessels, and well 
paid for herself in the damage inflicted upon the enemy. 
In another such, the Hatteras, the daring Blake engaged 
and fought the rebel Alabama until the Hatteras was 
riddled through and through, and sank under him. 

None knew better than the gallant officers who tried to 
adapt them to war purposes how utterly unfit for fighting 
these vessels were, and the moral courage required to 
risk their professional reputation and the National honor 
in such wretched substitutes for war ships, was infinitely 
greater than the physical courage required to face the 
enemy and the pitiless wintry gales. Yet that moral 
courage was shared in by officers and men alike. 

When Commander Bankhead was ordered to command 
the original Monitor, after Worden had been disabled in 
the fight with the Merrimack, he read his orders of 
detachment and assignment to the command of the 
Monitor, on the quarter deck of the ship he then com- 
manded, to the ship's company at muster, and in a few 
well chosen words thanked the crew for their efficiency 
in the many actions they had been engaged in, and said 
he regretted having to leave them, but that he believed 



PAYMASTER WAIT S RESPONSE. 43 

he could render more efficient service to the country in 
the Montior, though of course it would be very desperate 
service. The moment he had concluded, the old gray 
haired Captain of the forecastle came forward, and 
asked as a favor that he might go with Bankhead on the 
Monitor. Then the whole ship's company advanced in 
a body, and asked that they might go also. Bankhead, 
with some emotion, told them that they could not all go, 
of course, but that he would take as many as he could. 
The men went with enthusiasm to the illfated craft, 
though at the time they well knew the utter unsea- 
worthiness of the little Monitor, and some of these very 
men went down with her when she foundered at sea in a 
gale a few weeks afterwards. 

The devotion of these seamen had been stimulated, it 
is true, by the inspiring excitement of actual conflict and 
of victory. But the same spirit of unselfish devotion was 
shown at the very beginning. In one of the vessels on 
which I served was an aged man o' war's man, of the old 
school, who, by reason of extreme age and length of 
service, had been sent to the Naval Asylum before the 
war. At the first call to arms, this old man went to the 
Navy Yard and desired to be sent to sea in a fighting 
ship, but was refused, on account of his extreme age. He 
then went to New York, and there succeeded in getting 
to sea. And I well remember when we crossed Charleston 
Bar in a fierce northeast gale, under such hazardous 
circumstances that nothing but the urgent nature of the 
duty justified it, the Captain ordered a man sent into the 
fore chains to heave the lead, and no sooner was the 
order passed, than this old man was over in the chains at 
the lead. The officer of the watch was told to send a 



44 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

younger man in his place, but he begged lo be allowed 
to stay, and performed the service with a vigor and skill 
that could not have been surpassed by the sturdiest sea- 
man in the ship. This old man was always foremost 
when there was any difficult or dangerous duty to per- 
form, and you may well believe that with such an example 
before them, there were no laggards in that ship. 

In the sieges on the Southern coast, the troops used 
great numbers of Parrott rifled heavy guns. These guns 
burst so frequently that it was the regular practice to take 
cover before firing them. The same kind of heavy guns 
were in general use on the vessels of the Navy, and fre- 
quently burst there also, sometimes with great loss of 
life ; yet the guns' crews invariably stood as calmly around 
their guns when fired in action, as if they did not know 
that those Parrott rifles were bursting almost daily in the 
siege batteries, and in the fleet also. 

Those who live in communion with the wonders of the 
deep, and who grow by measuring their strength against 
the warring elements, insensibly acquire an ennobled 
sentiment of devotion to duty, and even those among 
them who are reckless or improvident may yet be safely 
relied upon in the hour of need ; in stress of weather, and 
in stress of battle, the typical American seamen may be 
relied upon absolutely to do all that can be done. 

A long familiarity with this fact served to embolden 
Farragut to undertake to fight Ironclads with wooden 
ships; Worden, to encounter a ponderous floating bat- 
tery, with what was contemptuously termed by the enemy 
a cheese box on a raft; Morris, to fight the helpless old 
Cumberland, until she sank with her battle flags flying, 
her crew at quarters, and firing her guns after the port 



PAYMASTER WAIT's RESPONSE. 



45 



sills were under water ; Roe, to ram an Ironclad with a 
wooden gun-boat; Gushing, to run eight miles inside the 
enemy's lines, and sink an Ironclad ram with an open 
boat; and so on through a long list of brilliant and 
unprecedented achievements, showing daring and skill in 
as high a degree as was ever recorded, and proving the 
existence of a pure and unselfish devotion to noble 
principles, that elevates the standard of common man- 
hood, and admonishes us to do the best we can while yet 
we may be spared. 



46 liANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 



Fifth Toast, "Our Dead." 

" A chosen corps — they are marching on, 

In a wider field than ours : 
Those bright battalions still fulfill 

The scheme of the heavenly powers : 
And high, brave thoughts float down to us, 

The echoes of that far fight, 
Like the flash of a distant picket's gun 

Tlirough the shades of the severing night." 

Recitation — "Burial March of Dundee," by 

^bt. ^rrg (iltn. (Tbas. ^it^ Simons, tl. §. Dols. 
***** 
II. 
On the heights of Killecrankie 

Yester morn our army lay : 
Slowly rose the mist in columns 

From the river's broken way ; 
Hoarsely roared the swollen torrent, 

And the pass was wrapped in gloom, 
When the clansmen rose together 

From their lair amidst the broom. 
Then we belted on our tartans. 

And our bonnets down we drew, 
And we felt our broadswords' edges. 

And we proved them to be true ; 
And we prayed the prayer of soldiers. 

And we cried the gathering cry, 
And we clasped the hands of kinsmen 

And we swore to do or die ! 



GEN. FITZ SIMONS' RECITATION. 47 



Then our leader rode before us 

On his war-horse black as night — 
Well the Cameronian rebels 

Knew that charger in the fight ! — 
And a cry of exultation 

From the bearded warriors rose ; 
For we loved the house of Claver'se, 
And we thought of good Montrose. 
But he raised his hand for silence — 

" Soldiers ! I have sworn a vow : 
Ere the evening star shall glisten 

On Schehallions lofty brow, 
Either we shall rest in triumph, 

Or another of the Graemes 
Shall have died in battle-harness 

For his Country and King James ! 
Think upon the Royal Martyr — 

Think of what his race endure — 
Think on him whom butchers murder'd 

On the field of Magus Muir : — 
By his sacred blood I charge ye, 

By the ruined hearth and shrine — 
By the blighted hopes of Scotland, 

By your injuries and mine — 
Strike this day as if the anvil 

Lay beneath your blows the while. 
Be they Covenanting traitors, 

Or the brood of false Argyle ! 
Strike ! and drive the trembling rebels 

Backwards o'er the stormy Forth ; 
Let them tell their pale convention 
How they fared within the North. 



48 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

Let them tell that Highland honor 

Is not to be bought nor sold, 
That we scorn their prince's anger 

As we loathe his foreign gold. 
Strike ! and when the fight is over, 

If you look in vain for me, 
Where the dead are lying thickest 

Search for him that was Dundee ! " 

III. 
***** 

Soon we heard a challenge trumpet 

Sounding in the Pass below, 
And the distant tramp of horses, 

And the voices of the foe ; 
Down we crouched amid the bracken, 

Till the Lowland ranks draw near, 
Panting like the hounds in summer. 

When they scent the stately deer. 
From the dark defile emerging, 

Next we saw the squadrons come, 
Leslie's foot and Leven's troopers 

Marching to the tuck of drum ; 
Through the scattered wood of birches. 

O'er the broken ground and heath, 
Wound the long battalions, slowly, 

Till they gained the field beneath ; 
Then we bounded from our covert. — 

Judge how looked the Saxons then, 
When they saw the rugged mountain 

Start to life with armed men ! 
Like a tempest down the ridges 

Swept the hurricane of steel. 



GEN. FITZ SIMONS RECITATION. 49 

Rose the Slogan of Macdonald — 

Flashed the broadsword of Lochiel ! 
Vainly sped the withering volley 

'Mongst the foremost of our band — 
On we poured until we met them, 

Foot to foot, and hand to hand. 
Horse and man went down like drift-wood 

When the floods are black at Yule, 
And their carcasses are whirling 

In the Garry's deepest pool. 
Horse and man went down before us — 

Living foe there tarried none 
On the fields of Killecrankie, 

When that stubborn fight was done ! 

IV. 

And the evening star was shining 

On Schehallion's distant head, 
When we wiped our bloody broadswords, 

And returned to count the dead. 
There we found him gashed and gory, 

Stretched upon the cumbered plain, 
As he told us where to seek him, 

In the thickest of the slain. 
And a smile was on his visage, 

For within his dying ear 
Pealed the joyful note of triumph ! 

And the clansmen's clamorous cheer: 
So, amidst the battle's thunder. 

Shot, and steel, and scorching flame, 
In the glory of his manhood 

Passed the spirit of the Grasme ! 



50 HANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

V. 

Open wide the vaults of Athol, 

Where the bones of heroes rest — 
Open wide the hallowed portals 

To receive another guest ! 
Last of Scots, and last of freemen — 

Last of all that dauntless race 
Who would rather die unsullied 

Than outlive the land's disgrace ! 
O thou lion-hearted warrior! 

Reck not of the after-time : 
Honor may be deemed dishonor, 

Loyalty be called a crime. 
Sleep in peace with kindred ashes 

Of the noble and the true. 
Hands that never failed their country. 

Hearts that never baseness knew. 
Sleep ! — and till the latest trumpet 

Wakes the dead from earth and sea, 
Scotland shall not boast a braver 

Chieftain than our own Dundee ! 



MAJ. PADDOCKS RESPONSE. 51 

Sixth Toast, " Our Order." 

" Esto perpetua." 
Response by 

Pajor (L^corgc |.\ |.)ui)both, E. ^. (f-. i. 

Mr. Commander, Gentlemen: As we contemplate 
this toast how broad a vista opens before us ! To a reck- 
less and unscrupulous person how tempting would seem 
the opportunity to ramble away in distant parts of so vast 
a theme. Fortunately, however, for this unarmed and 
peaceful assemblage, the wisdom and justice of the author- 
ities have guarded well all the approaches of talk ; as the 
talkers have, with fraternal solicitude, been made aware 
that the lease of this hall is but temporary, and that we are 
not expected to fatigue ourselves with too protracted 
addresses. Whatever may be said of the merits of an 
open formation in aggressive tactics, the committee, as I 
understand, object to very wide intervals in the line of 
toasts upon an occasion like the present. I am, therefore, 
happy to predict that long before the dawn at this re- 
union of our order, all the responses will have been heard ; 
not a regular lost, not a volunteer left on the field. 

We have waited long for this time to come. Sitting 
with our honored guest to-night, ourselves the guests of a 
civic association devoted to national union, we may look 
back across many a year of varied experiences, traversed 
by us all for the sake of reaching this culminating hour. 
As the gardener works and watches for years, in order to 
behold some rare and crowning blossom of the conserva- 



52 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

tory, SO in a sense may it be said that we have been pre- 
paring for this meeting since the days of 1861. 

In speaking, between the walnuts and the wine, of our 
order, are we to consume such evanescent moments in 
treating of the external structure of our institutions? 
Are we to stand without, and gaze upward at the edifice 
from the sidewalk, so to say? At such a time you will 
hardly expect an essay on the constitution. Yet I am 
free to aver that the M. O. L. L. U. S. has been blest by 
nature with a firm and robust constitution. Even our 
enemies, if we have any, would have to concede that. 
Are there not certain favored spots on the globe, perpet- 
ual watering places, everlasting sanitariums — Los An- 
geles, Chicago, Madeira, for example — where the climate 
preserves a golden mean the whole year round ? And 
there are constitutions, and by-laws too, are there not ? 
which, being reasonably benevolent toward the good, are 
yet neither oppressively violent nor pusillanimously weak 
and fickle toward the wicked. Ours is precisely such a 
constitution; it is not delicate, and we hope it is not in- 
delicate. Competent judges certify it to be a compact, 
reliable document, in which a frank and engaging simpli- 
city, and a fair amount of astuteness and ambiguity are 
blended in harmonious proportions. The constitution 
being safe, we may drop these dry technicalities and pass 
to the interior. 

To begin at the beginning. Our modes of initiation 
are gentle, and our manners and customs good natured 
and serene. No novice who joins us need fear to pass 
the ordeal. He meets no Rosicrucian mysteries, no 
apparatus of ghosts and rattling bones, no horrid sights 
and sounds from the nether world. I mav add that such 



MAJ. paddock's response. 53 



secret and sanguinary rituals, if they ever had the sanc- 
tion of our order, have long since been abandoned in 
favor of milder methods. Since the present committee 
have had charge, as I am assured by the reports, there 
have been absolutely no casualties during the amicable 
ceremonies of affiliation. This is encouraging. The 
honorary promise of the neophyte, accompanied by his 
check for the amount of the initiation fee, has been found 
sufficient. Each member, on joining, being assigned a 
number, one of an arithmetical series increasing by 
units, the registration is simple and permanent. Indeed, 
we are a self-registering body from the first man to the 
last. The founders doubtless intended this as a means of 
avoiding unprofitable debate concerning the antiquity of 
our order. So long as badge number one can instantly 
be traced on the record it will be vain for any of us to 
pretend that we were coeval with Hiram of Tyre, or were 
present for duty at the laying of the corner stone of the 
temple. There is, therefore, no anachronism about the 
Loyal Legion ; it belongs to the modern period, and is 
willing to admit it whenever the proper evidence is pro- 
duced. 

But deeper and more serious thoughts belong to my 
topic. We constantly ask ourselves for what does the 
order exist.'' What are its aims, what its uses.'* The 
answer is to be found in the lives of its members, and we 
may read its character and destiny in its acts. 

It has inscribed upon its coat of arms that noble motto 
which subordinates the ambition of the warrior to the 
duty of the citizen. Hence it may well assume the title 
of loyal. We never can be too grateful, I think, that this 
is a land where the organization and movements of 



54 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

armies are controlled by laws enacted and administered 
under the forms of republican government. 

It was but a day or two since that there appeared in a 
New York paper a review of the life of a distinguished 
Peninsular veteran who lately died in England. The 
writer, in making some generalizations upon the book, 
uses this language : " It is the active, unreflecting spirits — 
the men who can receive with unquestioning faith the 
conventional morality and the popular politics of the 
time — who accept commissions in the army. They ex- 
perience no difficulty in making over their consciences to 
the keeping of the superior military authorities, and are 
ready to shoot anybody at the word of command, without 
asking if he has done anything deserving of death." 

With the propriety or impropriety of this condemna- 
tion, as applied to the officers of Wellington or his sover- 
eign, we have at present no concern. But it does concern 
us to remember that our army was one that went forth to 
battle of its own accord, one in which neither officer nor 
private surrendered the keeping of his conscience to any 
living person. That army believed its cause to be just. 
In the presence of great danger to the country, and in 
obedience to the natural law of self-preservation, it took 
the military sacrament of devotion to its flag, the flag of 
our Union. For this the army and the nation may be 
proud, even amid the eternal sadnesses of civil war. For 
this we can rejoice that, with Americans at least, the name 
of soldier consists with the greater dignities of man and 
citizen. 

So persuaded, we have employed ourselves in seeking 
out and bringing together our former companions, and 
thereby reviving and maintaining the friendships of the 



MAJ. paddock's response. 55 



past. Many have joined us ; many others, as we hope, 
are on the way. The gathering memories of olden days 
hover about us as we come together, and we begin to 
discern the fact that the struggle, which at the time was 
supposed to relate mainly to our own country, was in 
reality a contest big with the fate of other and unborn 
republics across the seas. Its real forces begin to appear. 

We have now approached a distance from which a 
broader, and therefore truer judgment is possible. Now 
is perceived, more than ever before, the extent of the 
service to the cause of civilization rendered by the armies 
of the Union. 

We shall be found, while life lasts, engaged in the 
work. We intend not to lose sight of the great purposes 
of the order. We are mortal, but not wholly shall we 
die, if, living in the persons of our descendants, we 
establish the successors by whom our places are to be 
filled. So may the order endure, and so be accomplished 
the loving aspiration : " EsTO perpetua ! " 



56 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 



Seventh Toast. "The Volunteer Soldiers of the 

Union Army." 

" Unselfish, untiring, • 
Intrepid and true ; 
The bulwark surrounding 
The Red, White and Blue." 

Response by 

(iTapt. %. |j. (JTljonms, t\. §•. Ibis. 

Born and reared in the shadow of the Green Mountains, 
my boyish imagination was early fired by reading the 
daring deeds of Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain 
Boys, which Thompson has woven into such attractive 
shape in the pages of his romance, and the taking of 
Ticonderoga in the name of " the Great Jehovah and the 
Continental Congress," was one of our favorite school 
games; but as I grew older, in the piping times of peace, 
and the June training and the October muster became 
obsolete, the martial spirit died out. My first acquaint- 
ance with the American volunteer was in the person of a 
few veterans of the Mexican war. I need not say that 
this was not a popular war in my native state, and that 
the F. F. V"s (first families of Vermont) represented in 
that army could have been counted on one's fingers. 
Our delegation was composed of citizens who could easily 
be spared, and it was fondly hoped they would remain in 
the Halls of the Montezumas when they got there, but 
they didn't belong to the class of the unreturning brave, 
and most of them found their way back, minus a leg or 
arm, plus a highly cultivated appetite for whiskey, which 



CAPT. THOMAS* RESPONSE. 



57 



they gratified on all possible occasions. They were held 
up to us as awful examples, and the warlike spirit which 
was our heritage had degenerated till we echoed Lowell's 
sentiments, expressed in the famous Bigelow papers, viz : 

" Ez fer war, I call it murder, — 
There you hev it plain an' flat ; 
I don't want to go no furder 
Than my Testyment for that ; 
God hez sed so plump and fairly, 
It's ez long ez it is broad, 
An' you've gut to git up airly 
Ef you want to take in God. 

" 'Taint your eppyletts an' feathers 
Make the thing a grain more right ; 
'Taint a follerin' your bell wethers. 
Will excuse ye in His sight ; 
Ef you take a sword an' dror it, 
An go stick a feller thru, 
Guv'ment aint to answer for it, 
God'U send the bill to you." 

but when the venerable Rufifin, at Charleston, in the 
spring of 1861, "fired the shot heard round the world," 
the Green Mountain Boys sprang to arms and showed 
themselves worthy sons of heroic sires. 

In the fall of 1861, I entered the Adjutant-General's 
office in Washington, and enjoyed rare opportunities for 
making the acquaintance of the American volunteer and 
studying his characteristics. I saw the sons of New Eng- 
land and the middle states, not only artisans and farmers, 
but professional men (colleges and academies furnishing 
their full quotas), as they went pouring by thousands 
through the streets of the capital and melting away into 
the canvas cities which stretched for miles on either side 



58 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

of the Potomac. As illustrating the personnel of these 
regiments, I recollect, when campaigning in Kentucky in 
1863, the regiment to which I belonged was destitute of a 
chaplain, and a Massachusetts regiment lying near us, 
sent us four candidates from the non-commissioned offi- 
cers of one company, all thoroughly equipped graduates 
of colleges and theological seminaries. The west sent its 
thousands of sturdy lumbermen, mechanics and farmers, 
men of muscle and brawn, not quite so much culture, or 
perhaps so amenable to discipline as their eastern com- 
rades, but they afterwards, many of them, graduated in 
the ranks of Sherman's historic bummers, and participated 
in the march to the sea. 

The first time I saw a great number of troops together 
was at McClellan's review of the army of the Potomac, in 
December, 1861, and, to my inexperienced eye, it seemed 
an invincible array. That gorgeous staff of French 
princes, and other distinguished foreigners, and native 
magnates, impressed me as capable of compelling the 
surrender of any right feeling enemy. No thought of the 
impending disasters of the peninsular swamps or of Freder- 
icksburg darkened the brilliant pageant, and the thousands 
of admiring spectators returned to Washington with the 
conviction that at last the hour and the man had come, 
and that McClellan had only to hurl these columns upon 
Lee and crush out the young rebellion. 

Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the western 
volunteer was his individuality. Nothing can better 
illustrate this than an instance that occurred under my 
own observation, in one of the last battles of the war, 
known as the battle of Kinston, N. C. One of the bri- 
gades in the command of Gen. S. P. Carter, upon whose 



CAPT. THOMAS RESPONSE. 59 

Staff I served, was composed exclusively of convalescents, 
left behind by Sherman when he cut loose from Atlanta 
and started on his march to the sea. They had been 
ordered to North Carolina to meet their respective com- 
mands, and were temporarily serving in a provisional divi- 
sion. In this particular brigade there were representa- 
tives of one hundred and eighteen regiments. Gen. 
Hoke, flushed with his victory over Wessells, was in our 
front, and pressing us hard. We felt apprehensive as to 
the conduct of this brigade, away from their commanders 
and comrades, fighting on their own hook, as it were, but 
when the attack came, no part of our line fought with 
steadier courage. Every man seemed to feel that he held 
in his hands the honor of his company, and fought like a 
hero. No equal number of troops ever fought more gal- 
lantly, and Hoke's signal defeat was largely their work. 

For several months after entering the field, I was identi- 
fied with a class of volunteers who deserve special men- 
tion — the East Tennessee refugees. Stimulated by no 
prospect of high bounties, they had taken their lives in 
their hands, and fled through swamps and mountains, 
chased by the bloodhounds or more savage guerrillas, 
sacrificing everything held most dear for an opportunity 
to be led against the enemies of the government, which 
Brownlow, Maynard and Johnson had taught them to 
love. Simple hearted, like all mountaineers, passionately 
attached to their homes, they chafed under the delay 
necessary to organize a force prepared to march to their 
deliverance. They did not take very kindly to discipline, 
and the distinction between officer and private was not as 
strongly marked as it might have been. Ludicrous stories 
were current in neighboring camps of the free and easy 



6o BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

Style in which privates discussed with their officers orders 
which were not agreeable to them, but if there was fight- 
ing to be done, they could always be counted on, and as 
sharp-shooters and skirmishers, they were unsurpassed. 
The dangers encountered in their passage over the Cum- 
berland mountains, which formed the theme of many a 
stirring tale around the camp fires, had admirably fitted 
them for this service, and I shall never forget the hallelu- 
jahs they shouted when Burnside started for their beloved 
East Tennessee. 

No sketch of the American volunteer would be com- 
plete that did not mention that most peculiarly American 
type in whose behoof the great contest was waged — those 
happy, childlike wards of the Nation, the descendants of 
Ham ! With them, soldiering seemed an eternal picnic ! 
What fine material they made, when disciplined and prop- 
erly commanded, let Fort Wagner, Milliken's Bend and 
Nashville testify. The senseless prejudice that for years 
failed to utilize such resources, was a reproach to the 
Nation. 

Courtesy to a fallen foe leads us to pay the tribute of our 
admiration to those imwluntary volunteers, who wore the 
gray — for whom no grateful country throws wide open 
the doors of its treasury, and upon whose ears no such 
words as "back-pay," or "equalization of bounties," ever 
fall. Truly they were foemen worthy of our steel ! and 
their unavailing valor was worthy of a better cause. It is 
our glory that we saved them from themselves. God 
grant that no such sight may ever again be witnessed as 
American volunteers fighting under different banners. 
One of the great compensations for all the waste of blood 
and treasure in the Titanic conflict, is found in the newly 



CAPT. THOMAS RESPONSE. 6l 



awakened spirit of nationality, of which the starry flag is 
the living emblem. Should it ever again float over a bat- 
tlefield, we cherish the belief, that the victorious legions 
fighting under its folds, made up of all these heteroge- 
neous elements, fused in one grand mass, and led by such 
captains as Grant, Sherman and Sheridan, could success- 
fully face a world in arms. 



62 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 



Eighth Toast, " The Armies of the East." 

" How they charged 'mid shot and shell, 

How they bore aloft the banner; 

How they conquered, how they fell." 

Response by 

\M. f t.-(f ol. puntington M. |;uhson, t\. §. Vols. 

If in a word you would know how the Eastern armies 
charged and conquered, go to the capital of every loyal 
state, east and west, and look upon the carefully guarded, 
and, though tattered, all the more eloquent, emblems 
there presented and the long roll of victories inscribed 
upon their folds. If you would know how its soldiers 
fell, go into every northern graveyard, in city or ham- 
let, and behold for yourselves ; or look upon the voice- 
less marble, the silent graves and long and significant 
trenches upon the heights of Arlington and Gettysburgh 
where the soldiers of eighteen loyal states fought their 
last battle and now sleep their last sleep. Even then 
one-half of the story has not been told. If you would 
know more, ask of those soldiers whose early laurels, 
splendidly won on western fields, were kept fresh and 
green by eastern victories. Ask Grant to tell you of his 
army as it marched by the left flank from the Wilder- 
ness, past Petersburgh to Appomattox, and then crowned 
its career by strangling the serpent of Rebellion. Ask of 
our distinguished and illustrious guest to tell you of the 
swift rally and brilliant charge in the Shenandoah, where 
he dashed down the line " mid a storm of huzzas," and 



COL. JACKSON S RESPONSE. 



how like a cloud he rolled round the rebel right flank at 
Five Forks. 

Before the echoes of Sumter's guns had died away, 
the nation had sprung to arms. The fires of patriotism 
illuminated hill and valley, and the response to the call 
of the President was quick and grand. Upon the banks 
of the historic Potomac there gathered with proud steps, 
spangled banners, glistening bayonets and martial 
music, not only the sturdy backwoodsman of Maine, and 
the hardy Green Mountain boy, not only the merchant 
from his counting room, and the student from the classic 
shades of Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth and Princeton, not 
only the artisan who had laid aside his tools, and the lawyer 
who had surrendered his brief, not only volunteer and regu- 
lar, but there also came from where we were told the star of 
Empire took its way — from the broad, blooming prairies, 
magnificent regiments of equally determined men, repre- 
senting every western state east of the Mississippi ; regi- 
ments which proved in many a desperate struggle that 
they were worthy of being brothers to the heroes of Mur- 
freesboro, Vicksburg, Chattanooga and Atlanta. Of such 
was the composition of the Army of the Potomac. Every 
northern and western state had her sons within its ranks 
and watched them with tender care and solicitude. 
From an army composed of such material — an army edu- 
cated, intelligent, self-sacrificing and loving freedom, like 
their Revolutionary sires; animated by the purest feel- 
ings of patriotism and love of country, believing that 
their government was conceived in liberty and dedicated 
to the proposition that all men are created equal, and that 
such government was the government of a nation and not 
of a confederacy ; believing too that the rebellion that had 



64 BANQUETS TO LT.-GRN. SHERIDAN. 

been inaugurated was wicked and without cause, and 
that its leaders were solely influenced by selfish ambition 
and a determination to perpetuate the curse of slavery, I 
say that from such a noble body of men it is not surpris- 
ing, it would have been surprising had it been otherwise, 
that through the long four years, whether stricken down 
by the poisonous malaria from Chickahominy swamps, 
whether the victim of political intrigue, for, as has been 
said, when politics enter an army strategy retires ; whether 
the victim of incompetency or unseemly jealousies, or 
whether baffled or overcome, its ardor was unquenched 
and its singleness of purpose unchanged. 

While it did not always win victories, it was never con- 
scious of defeat. Though led by many commanders, it 
was always obedient and true. Impressed with the mag- 
nitude and formidable character of the struggle, it only 
asked for a man to lead it. In time its organization, 
discipline and equipment in all the departments of 
service became almost perfect, for the jealousies finally 
disappeared, and the political gangrene sloughed off. 
The importance of Washington, the establishment of the 
rebel capital at Richmond, and the designs of the enemy 
upon the very heart of the nation, turned the eyes not 
only of the country, but of the civilized world to the 
state upon whose soil there were destined to wage the 
most sanguinary and hotly contested battles known in 
history. 

Before the close of the war the fields of Virginia had 
been whitened with the bones and enriched by the 
blood of tens of thousands of unreturning braves. 

Almost every foot of ground within its borders had 
been the scene of fierce strife, for opposed to the army 



COL. JACKSON S RESPONSE. 



of the Potomac was the flower of the South, strong and 
confident, led by Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Longstreet, 
aided by a corps of bold lieutenants. 

From its very organization the Army of the Potomac 
encountered unforeseen difficulties. Its proximity to 
Washington was an element of weakness. The slightest 
movement could scarcely be made without publicity and 
the fact reported by sympathizing friends to the enemy. 
Until near the close of the war the influences of the 
capital operated unfavorably in many ways, sometimes in 
embarrassing the freedom of action of its commanders 
and compelling them to undertake movements which 
their better judgment disproved, and again in encourag- 
ing subordinates to condemn, even within the doors of 
the White Jlouse, the campaigns of their superiors. 

But for the Army of the Potomac as an army no apolo- 
gy is needed, no explanations are necessary — none are 
offered. As time rolls its ceaseless course, its history 
grows brighter and brighter; we can see it now, that grand 
body of veterans in its onward, patient, loyal march, 
keeping step to the music of the Union. 

On an occasion like this it is impossible to more than 
mention its principal achievements. While the personal 
experiences of many are being recorded in printed pages, 
and the press has recently given to the public the story 
of McClellan on the Peninsula, the army under Pope, 
the battle of Antietam, Fredericksburgh, Chancellors- 
ville, and the three days' carnage at Gettysburgh, there is 
more remaining untold, and as the bitter memories fade 
away, and one by one its actors join the great and silent 
majority, the future historian will then impartially write 
of its exploits, heroism and undaunted courage. 



66 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

Rich will be the material from which he can draw 
to adorn the pages of his story in prose or verse. 
Grand and attractive will be the lives there portrayed, 
and while he can not picture a march to the sea, the 
storming of mountains and the opening of great rivers, 
still he can tell of a patriotism no greater but as great as 
that in any army, and of examples as glorious as those of 
any army, for future generations to follow. 

He can there tell of the gallant one-armed Kearney, 
superbly mounted, with sword in hand and reins between 
his teeth, through shot and shell leading his Jersey 
Brigade against the rebel lines at Williamsburgh ; of 
grand and ever true John Sedgwick, more like " the 
Rock of Chickamauga," George H. Thomas, than any 
other man I ever knew ; of dashing and brave Reynolds 
falling in the first hour of battle on Seminary Ridge at 
Gettysburgh, while marshalling his Pennsylvania regi- 
ments, to repel the invasion of his and their native state ; 
of Vincent, the hero at Round Top, whose heart, just 
before darkness closed his eyes forever, was made glad 
by the electric flash from Washington announcing that the 
government had rewarded him for his gallantry and 
changed his eagle to a star; of young Gushing just gradu- 
ated from West Point, and of whom it is written that 
when mortally wounded, holding on to his intestines with 
one hand and with the other aiding in pushing his only 
remaining gun further to the front, he cried out : " Webb, I 
will give them one more shot," and as the shot mowed 
through Pickett's advancing column, fell dying at his 
post ; of the Wisconsin Iron Brigade, fitly named, and 
their brave companions at Fredericksburgh, 



COL. Jackson's response. 67 



" Orders arrived, and the river they crossed, 
Orders they heard and they scaled the heights," 

Under a murderous fire and with terrible loss; of the 
stanch old Sixth Corps storming and carrying Marye's 
Heights ; of Meade, of Hooker, of Wadsworth, and Buford, 
and Custe,r, and a host of other heroes. But I will add 
no more. 

" On fame's eternal camping ground 
Their silent tents are spread, 
And glory guards with solemn round 
The bivouac of the dead." 



68 BANQUETS TO LT.-GKN. SHERIDAN. 



Ninth Toast, "The Armies of the West." 

They subdued fortresses deemed impregnable, and vanquished 
armies asserted invincible. 

ReSPONSE BY 

^fat.-grig.-fen. |oscpb k\. ftakr, 1. ^. ^bls. 

Mr. President : The armies of the West. The lan- 
guage of the toast is their history reduced to its briefest 
terms. The theater of their operations extended from 
the north line of Missouri to the centre of North Caro- 
lina, over vv^hich they swept, conquering all armed opposi- 
tion in every rebellious state but one. The position of 
the loyal states of the West, in reference to the military 
movements, was very different from that of the Eastern 
states, supplied from the greater population and military 
resources of the East. The great Eastern army had but 
a short line from about Harper's Ferry to Alexandria, 
along which there was danger of attack, and its aggres 
sive movements carried it but a short distance from 
Potomac to Petersburgh. The states of the West were 
vulnerable along the whole line from the pan-handle of 
Virginia to the northwest corner of Missouri, — while the 
West sent its volunteers to that grand army which has 
carved the record of its mighty deeds upon every field 
from Gettysburgh to Appomattox, who shared in its dan- 
gers, struggles and triumphs, from the hero in the serried 
ranks to him in the highest command, — it had the addi- 
tional honor of sending forth the other invincible armies 
of men, who assaulted the rebellion along the whole line 



GEN. LEAKE'S response. 69 

from Phillippi and Rich Mountain, to Booneville and Val 
Verde, and advancing in concentring lines — finally con- 
solidated and swept across to the gulf and around by the 
sea — capturing and scattering the forces, cutting the com- 
munications, destroying the resources, and paralyzing the 
whole body of treason, made it possible to inflict the 
death stroke upon the fields of Virginia. It was an 
army of the West which in the beginning drove the ene- 
my from West Virginia, saved that new State to the Un- 
ion and advanced McClellan to the general command of 
the Armies of the United- States. It was a little West- 
ern army, under the leadership of Canby, that, at the bat- 
tle of Val Verde saved the territories from rebel invasion 
and capture. 

It was with an army of the West that Lyon held the 
arsenals and city of St. Louis, chased the rebel govern- 
ment of Missouri across the state, boldly advanced, as- 
saulted and staggered four times its number at Wilson's 
Creek; a rebel army was defeated and driven from the 
field at Pea Ridge, and abandoned the state. 

Later, in December, 1862, another rebel army under 
Hindman, organized to obtain possession of the extreme 
West, was met, attacked, defeated and effectually dispersed 
by the army of the frontier, of greatly inferior numbers, 
whereby the country west of the Mississippi and north of 
the Arkansas rivers was permanently saved from further 
serious hostilities. An army of the West gathered in mid- 
winter around Fort Donelson, and regardless of the in- 
clemency of the season, invested, assaulted and captured 
the fortification and all its defenders, thereby opening 
the rivers and advancing the whole line to the centre of 
Tennessee. It fought its way down the Mississippi river. 



70 BANQUETS TO LT.-CEN. SHERIDAN. 

floundered through swamps, attacked unattainable heights^ 
then abandoning all communications penetrated to the 
rear of its enemy, fought and won battles to the right and 
left, scattered one force, invested another in the works of 
Vicksburg, impenetrable to assault, and by patient siege 
again captured the entire army opposed to it. The great 
river was opened to the sea and the territory of the re- 
bellion cut in twain, leaving all west of the river harmless 
for further aggression. 

It was an army of the West that penetrated the heart 
of the confederacy, and fought its way to Chattanooga, 
and there gathering force and joining hand with heroes 
from the East, drove the enemy from fortified heights 
above the clouds at Mission Ridge and Lookout Moun- 
tain. 

It was an army of the West which flanked and fought 
its way throught mountain passes to Atlanta, and " march- 
ing through Georgia," threaded the swamps, and, carrying 
Fort Mac Allister by storm, opened the gates to the sea 
and welcomed the ships to long-hoped for anchorage and 
rest; then swinging to the north, it compelled the ene- 
my to run from the boastful little city, which had fired the 
first hostile gun upon the flag it hoped to dishonor, and 
over which the "swamp angel" had so long boomed his 
wrathful defiance in vain. 

It was an army of the West which gathered in haste at 
Nashville, and scattered as spray the refluent wave of re- 
bellion, which surged and broke at the base of the still 
immovable "rock of Chickamauga." 

It was an army of the West which, on the day the army 
of Northern Virginia laid down its arms, carried by as- 
sault Spanish Fort and Fort Blakely and opened the har- 



(IKN. LEAKE's response. >j ^ 



bor of Mobile to the Gulf. Before the death knell of 
treason had sounded at Appomattox the armies of the 
West had finished their course,— not an uncaptured 
fortress frowned across their path, not an unvanquished 
army halted in their front. From the Missouri to the Rio 
Grande; from the Ohio to the Gulf and around and up 
by the sea, over hundreds of miles of weary road, through 
miry swamps, across rivers desperately defended, and over 
obstructed mountain heights, they marched, waded, swam 
and scaled, ever pursuing, ever striking, until the " last 
armed foe had expired." As the years fly by, and eyes 
grow dim and the natural force abates, may not the vete- 
ran of the armies of the West, as he draws near the ban- 
quet board, be pardoned if his heart beats more proudly 
with the thought that when he recalls the past and 
"shoulders his crutch," he has only to "tell how fields 
were won "? 



72 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 



Tenth Toast, "The Last War and the Next." 

"I have noticed that the men who are so 'ready to shed the 
last drop of blood ' are usually very careful about their first." — 
David Crockett. 

Response by 

<f irst ITt. Samuel ;^pplcton, ®. §. ^)ols. 

The response to this toast was to have been given by 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. I. N. Stiles, U. S. Vols., but, at the last, 
moment, he was imavoidably called away, and Lieut. Ap- 
pleton responded. His speech was in his usual fine and 
witty style, but being made on the spur of the moment, 
without notes, he has been unable to furnish a copy for 
publication. 



MAJ. FURNESS RESPONSE. 73 



Eleventh Toast " The Girl I Left Behind Me. 

"For ye, sae douce, ye smile at this, 
Ya'er naught but senseless asses O ! 
The wisest man the world e're saw 
He dearly loved the lasses O ! " 

Response by 
Pajor Mm. (L-Uot J-:unu.ss, l\. §. ihh. 

THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME 

" 'Give us a song,' the soldiers cried. 
The outer trenches guarding. 
While the heated guns of the camps allied 
Grew weary of bombarding. 

They lay along the batteries' side. 

Below the slumbering cannon; 
Brave hearts from Severn and from Clyde, 

And from the banks of Shannon. 

They sang of love and not of fame. 

Forgot was Britain's glory; 
Each heart recalled a different name. 

But all sang 'Annie Laurie.' 

Voice after voice caught up the song. 

Until its tender passion 
Swelled like an anthem, rich and strong, 

Their battle eve's confession. 

Dear girl ! Her name he dared not speak; 

But as the song grew louder. 
Something upon the soldier's cheek 

Washed off the stain of powder. 



74 RANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

And once again a fire of hell 

Rained on the Russian quarters, 
'Mid scream of shot and burst of shell. 

And bellowing of the mortars. 

And Irish Norah's eyes are dim, 

For a singer dumb and gory; 
And English Mary mourns for him, 

Who sang of Annie Laurie. 

Beyond the darkening ocean burned 

The bloody sunset's embers; 
While the Crimean valleys learned 

How English love remembers. 

Ah! soldiers, to your honored rest, 

Your truth and valor bearing; 
The bravest are the tenderest, 

The loving are the daring." 

Comrades, Companions: Who of us does not remem- 
ber, when the call to arms rang through the land in the 
spring of '6i, how the enthusiasm was sustained and 
exalted by the mothers, wives and daughters of the North ? 
" Return with your shield or on your shield," said the 
Spartan mother to her sons ; and not less heroic were 
the Christian women of America in the hour of their 
country's need, in encouraging their fathers, husbands 
and sons to do their duty to the land they loved, and to 
which they owed their all. 

While we were hurrying to the field, or standing in the 
fight for right and country, our loved ones at home, in 
fann-house, village and city, were suffering in silence, 
following us with prayer, and ready to receive us with 
their smiles and blessings when, in God's good time, we 
should return. 



MAJ. FURNESS RESPONSE. 75 



Their faith sustained us, and their love and care was 
poured out upon us through all the hardships and dan- 
gers of our campaigns. Their hands tended us when 
wounded, smoothed our pillows when m sickness, and 
soothed the last hours of the heroes whose lives were 
given to their country. 

Think of the photographs of the loved one you, and you, 
and yot/, each carried next your heart during the wild 
charge or the grim stand, out on the lonely picket line, in 
the trenches of Vicksburg or Petersburgh, on the fields of 
Shiloh, Franklin, Gettysburgh or the Wilderness, on the 
march to the sea, at the passage of the forts below New 
Orleans, at Mobile Bay or Port Royal; in the disheart- 
ening defeat and the long retreat. How surely we knew 
those eyes would gladden to welcome us, those lips would 
reward us, when, if ever, we returned, and how the 
thought moved us to do that dufy which we knew we 
owed our country, and which was to make it a land worth 
living in, as it was already, in our love for it, a land worth 
dying for. 

We may well feel that we were privileged to be allowed 
to fight under the glorious flag, and do our share, as men, 
for our country in the hours of her trial in iS6i, 62, 63, 
•64 and 65. But let us never forget to award all praise to 
the girls we left behind us for what they, too, did in that 
great crisis ; for the devotion with which they suffered 
and waited and watched and prayed, sustaining our 
patriotism by their pure love, and faith in the ultimate 
success in the cause, and doing their part in hospital and 
home throughout the land to alleviate the sufferings we 
had to endure, while their own hearts were bleeding with 
fears and sorrows, which we could not lighten or relieve. 

God bless the girls we left behind us. 



76 BANQUETS TO LT.-(;EN. SHERIDAN. 



The list of Regular Toasts being completed, the Presid- 
ing Officer then announced the Volunteer Toasts : 

First Volunteer Toast, " The Cavalry." 

Response by 
Colcrna ®;. Igle §kkt^, Wi. §. ^ols. 

Mr. Chairman and Comrades: The toast announced 
is "The Cavalry." I don't know that I can say anything 
of interest about "The Cavalry." I might suggest that, 
with the advance of improvement in the guns of the 
infantry and of the artillery, the use of " The Cavalry" 
proper has become well nigh obsolete. 

So long as the musketry of the enemy was harmless,, 
except at short range, the saber charge — the use of Cavalry 
proper — could be made effective. Cavalry then could 
flank the artillery, approach the infantry at leisure, and 
when near-by, could make the short, fierce dash, in a line 
unbroken, with horses fresh and strong, exposed to but 
one volley; and by its mere momentum, the movement 
was irresistible. But now, with long range, breech-load- 
ing muskets in the hands of infantry, the saber charge 
must be a long run, encountering three or four volleys of 
musketry, reaching the objective point in a broken line, 
upon well blown and exhausted steeds. Such a charge 
necessarily lacks one essential, sudden, concentrated force, 
— momentum. 

It was near two years after the war began, before this 
lesson was learned. We learned to mass cavalry in large 



COL. DICKEY S RESPONSE. 



77 



bodies, to rely chiefly upon the carbine ; to dismount for 
the fight; and to use the horses merely as a means of 
rapid transit to the field of action. 

Perhaps no better illustration need be sought, of the 
uselessness of cavalry proper in modern battle, than is 
found in the incidents of the battle of Shiloh. We had 
not then learned to pit cavalry on foot, against infantry. 
At the beginning of that fight General Grant's army on 
field, by the morning reports of the preceding day, was 
less than thirty thousand, " fit for duty." Of that num- 
ber, some four or five thousand of infantry had received 
their first muskets within a week ; and some three thou- 
sand were cavalry, untaught in the art of fighting infantry. 
Aside from the service of arresting retreating stragglers 
from the infantry and returning them into action, the 
cavalry were little more than observers of the battle on 
that day. 

By the way, some events of that day are again the 
subject of discussion and dispute. It has been said that 
"our army was surprised," on the morning of that battle. 
If, by this, it is meant merely, that the battle was not 
expected to occur on that day, I think the statement is 
true. If, however, it is meant, that by reason of the un- 
expected character of the assault, our forces were taken 
at a disadvantage, when unprepared for the fight, I am 
warranted from personal knowledge in saying the statement 
is untrue. 

Our army, on the ground, consisted of five divisions, 
and our camps were on the west side of the Tennessee 
river, just above the mouth of Snake creek, and lay in 
the form of a V, with the river on our left and Snake 
creek on our right and rear. Smith's Division (com- 



•jS HAXQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

manded by Gen. W. H. L. Wallace) was at the point of 
the V, just above the mouth of Snake creek and near 
Pittsburgh Landing. In front of this division lay Hurl- 
but's division (on the left and near the river), and Mc- 
Clernand's division (on the right and further to the 
front). In front of these divisions were Sherman (on the 
right) and Prentiss (on the left). Sherman and Prentiss 
thus constituted our front. These camps lay about a 
mile apart, and Ross's brigade (from McClernand) oc- 
cupied a position between Sherman and Prentiss. My 
command was cavalry, and was part of Sherman's divis- 
ion, and my camp was on his extreme left and front. 

It was known, Saturday evening (April 5, 1S62), that 
the enemy was in our front in some force; and I was 
ordered to have my command in the saddle, at daylight, 
Sunday morning, to go forward and discover the extent 
and movements of the enemy. At daylight, Sunday 
morning, ni)' command was ready to mount. Very soon, 
and before we got started to the front, the battle began, 
by an attack upon Prentiss, at least a mile to the left of 
my position, and in front of his color line. I distinctly 
heard the long-roll beat in Prentiss' camp, and afterward 
heard the first heavy firing of the battle, and from the 
course I think it was about half a mile in front of Prentiss' 
camp. Very soon after this, the enemy appeared in force 
in front of Sherman, — but Sherman's whole line was under 
arms and in line of battle and ready for action at least 
fifteen minutes before the enemy came in sight. I there- 
fore assert that every man in our whole army had ample 
time to put himself in fighting attitude before he saw an 
enemy. 

Prentiss was soon driven back. He fell back obliquely 



COL. DICKEY S RESPONSE. 



79 



to the right, leaving his camp to his left. It has been as- 
serted that soldiers, in Prentiss' camp, were bayonetted in 
their tents before they had time to arm or even dress. 
It may be, that some laggards in his camp, who failed to 
respond to the long-roll and remained in camp, while 
their comrades went to the front, met death in their tents, 
and unarmed, as the right of the enemy swept through 
Prentiss' camp. Otherwise the story has no foundation 
in fact. 

Again, it has been charged that Grant was tardy in 
reaching the field, and in a condition unfit to command 
when he did come. I saw General Grant on the field 
early in the day, and I think it was before nine o'clock. 
He was self-possessed and active, and to me seemed in 
the full exercise of all his faculties. I saw him at other 
times through the day and talked with him. The only 
indication in his appearance of anything unusal, was 
found in the fact that he smoked his cigar with a little 
more vigor than common. The perfection of method by 
which every part of the army was so promptly brought 
into action, each in the best possible position, repels abso- 
lutely the idea of a want of the supervising control of 
the mind of a master. 

Sherman's left was driven back and to the right. JMc- 
Clernand's division occupied this opening. Smith's divis- 
ion (under W. H. L. Wallace) closed the gap between 
McClernand and Prentiss, and Hurlbut's division was 
pushed forward into line to the left of Prentiss. By ten 
o'clock every regiment of our army that would fight 
was in this line and in active battle. That line thus 
formed was held with slight variation and without mate- 
rial change, for hours, against vastly superior numbers. 



8o BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

The fighting was terrible. Batteries were taken and re- 
taken repeatedly, on the same ground. All this was not 
accident. Combinations such as this do not come by 
chance. They are necessarily the result of a contriving 
mind acting with a purpose. 

Again, it has been said that Prentiss was captured early 
in the day. This I personally know to be untrue. Late 
in the afternoon, and I think after four o'clock, at the 
left of the division commanded by Gen. W. H. L. Wallace, 
and not far from the right of Prentiss' division, I saw 
General Prentiss, and heard him and Wallace talking 
with each other. There was, at that time, a lull in the 
firing on that part of the field; as we talked, and very 
soon the firing in front of Prentiss' command became 
active. Wallace said : " Prentiss, I fear you will have some 
hot work there." Prentiss galloped toward his command 
saying, " I think so." Wallace rode slowly to the right 
along his line, and I galloped off to my regiment. In 
less than an hour after this, I heard that Wallace was 
killed and Prentiss was a prisoner. 

I think more lies have been told about that battle, 
and honestly believed and repeated^ than about any other 
battle of the war. The thousands of raw troops, who in 
panic fled from the field to the Landing at the river, I 
doubt not, believed our whole army was destroyed, and 
they alone had escaped. The first news of the battle 
reached the outside world from the Landing, through cor- 
respondents who got their first impressions at the Landing. 
General Buell's fine army that arrived in the evening of 
the first day got their first impressions of Grant's army 
at the Landing; and no doubt regarded the terrified 
mob found there, fit samples of Grant's command. The 



COL. dickey's response. 8 1 

soldiers who actually fought the first day's fight and did 
not see the Landing, were not heard from until after the 
first impressions were engraven upon the public mind. 

I have wandered from the subject of the toast. I hope 
you will excuse the digression. I am glad, while I still 
have a sound mind and a retentive memory, to have an 
opportunity to bear my testimony upon this subject before 
such an audience. Thanking you for your attention, I 
say, good-night. 



82 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

Second Volunteer Toast. "The Sutler." 

Response by 
ficiit. ilartin |. |lussdl, W. S. ihh. 

I feel more like a conscript than a volunteer. It was 
the great Napoleon's method to assign conscripts to skele- 
ton veteran regiments, the quicker to accustom this raw 
material to the discipline of camp and the dangers of 
battle. In an engagement, a victim of the draft thus 
placed was observed by his grim companions, the unsung 
heroes of a hundred campaigns, to tremble and grow 
pale. They twitted him with his manifest fear. He re- 
torted, "I am afraid, and if you were half as afraid as 
I, you would run away." If the comrades were as fright- 
ened by a call for a speech as I am, they, too, would 
run away. 

If any of them had ever marched up to the mouth of a 
cannon, and I fancy from some hints dropped to-night 
that they have, they would understand me when I say 
that I meet this occasion with even more trepidation than 
I have ever heard the sound of hostile cannon. Of this 
sutler, whose praises I am suddenly called upon to sing, 
and whose merits as a mainstay of our armies in times 
that tried men's stomachs, demand an eloquent tongue, 
not mine. What would I say, what could I say more 
than was said in his own behalf by the Arkansas volun- 
teer, who loved the companionship of the baggage wagons 
more than the roar of battle, and, though a brave fellow 
enough at a tankard, had no stomach for a fight.'' It was 
this wagon warrior's good fortune to be hurt by an igno- 



LT. Russell's response. 83 



ble mule, or other terrible projectile not sent by the 
enemy, and upon the strength of the injury so sustained 
he was allowed a furlough. It was his delight to wear his 
laurels at the cross-roads grocery, and there catch that 
hero's reward, the casual drink. One day a stranger 
inquired of this limping loiterer where he was wounded. 
"Whar was I wounded.?" he exclauned. "Whar was 
I wounded ? You damn fool, go read the history of your 
country ! " If comrades would know anything about the 
great deeds of the sutler, let them not call upon me 
but turn to the pages of history. I have nothing more 
to say for the sutler than to pron^ise that should the 
republic again become imperiled, he would be found as 
near the front as it would be profitable for him to go. 



84 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

Having finished the several toasts and responses, both 
regular and volunteer, the Presiding Officer read a num- 
ber of letters and telegrams of regret from absent guests 
and companions, among which were the following: 

New York, Feb. 9, 1882. 
William E. Strong, 

Dear Sir, — Will not be able to be present on March 6. 

U. S. Grant. 

Fremont, O., January 27, 1882. 

Ge/itlemen, — I regret that I am unable to attend the 
dinner to be given to Gen. Sheridan by the Illinois Com- 
mandery of the Loyal Legion. * * 

It is one of my cherished recollections that I was per- 
mitted during the valley campaign to serve under a gen- 
eral whose rare good fortune it is to have a military 
record so inspiring and brilliant and at the same time so 
solid and enduring as that of Gen. Sheridan. 

Sincerely, R. B. Hayes. 

Gen. W. E. Strong and others, Committee. 

Washington, D. C., Jan. 19, 1882. 
Gen. Wm. E. Strong, 

My Dear Friend, — I regret extremely my inability to 
attend the proposed dinner to Gen. Sheridan. Wishing 
you may have a good time, I am 

Very respectfully, Jno. A. Logan. 

The formal part of the banquet having been con- 
cluded, the members for some time longer entertained 
themselves by singing many old army songs. 




"Sbmban at Jfibf Jforhs." 



PART II 



1883 



PRESIDING AT THE BANQUET, 

GEN. WM. E. STRONG 

Junior Vice-COxMmander. 



BANQUET COMMITTEE. 

Paymaster Horatio L. Wait, Chairman. 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Arthur C. Ducat. 
Bvt.-Maj. Henry A. Huntington. 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Joseph Stockton. 
Capt. Simeon H. Crane. 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Wm. E. Strong. 



MILITARY ORDER 

OF THE 



LCOYAL LCEGION of the UnITED StATES, 
Commandery of the State of Illinois, 



iTieut.-^m, ^l^ilip p. Sl^mtran, 



UNITED STATES ARMY. 




* DINNER * 

March 6, 1883. 

Onion Leonue olub House, 
CHICAGO. 



Sheridan's March. 
(Composed for the occasion.) 



Menu 



Oysters on the half shell. 



Clear Soup. 



Fillet of Whitefish with Tartar Sauce. 
Potatoes. Cucumbers. 



Mushrooms. 



Tenderloin of Beef. 
Truffles. Green Peas. 



Spinach. 



Sweetbreads, Larded. 
Sliced Tomatoes. 

Maraschino Punch. 

Jack Snipe. 
Lettuce Salad. 



Cheese. Crackers. 

Fruit. Coffee 



Celery 



Toasts. 



First Toast, . . . "Our Commander." 

"The substance of ten thousand soldiers." 

" We are off on a raid 

And who is afraid 
So long- as we have gallant Phil, 

On his good black steed 

To show us the lead. 
As to Richmond he surely will ? " 

Response by Lieut.-Col. HUNTINGTON W. JACKSON. 
Music — " Hail to the chief ! " 

Second Toast, . . "The Federal Union." 

It has been preserved. 

Response by Gen. JOSEPH B. LEAKE. 

Music — "'The Union Forever." 

Third Toast, .... "The Army." 

Its muster-roll is shorter than the list of its achievements. 

Response by Major WM. ELIOT FURNESS. 

Chicago Quartette — "On to the charge." 

Fourth Toast, . . . "The Navy." 

" Don't give up the ship(s)." 

Response by Surgeon JAMES NEVINS HYDE. 

Music— "Red, White and Blue." 

Fifth Toast, . "The Heroes of the Shenandoah." 

" We fought Early from daylight until between si.x and seven o'clock. 
* * * We just sent them whirling through Winchester." 

Response by Capt. EPHRAIM A. OTIS. 

Chicago Quartette — " Fight Early." 

Sixth Toast, . ■. . . "The Fallen." 

" But whether on the scaffold high. 
Or in the battle's van. 
The fittest place where man can die 
Is where he dies for man." 

Recitation, "Just Eleven," by Lieut.-Col. TAYLOR P. RUNDLET. 

Chicago Quartette — "The Knight's Farewell." 



TOASTS. 

Seventh Toast, . . . "The Loyal Legion.' 

Child of the Cincinnati. 

Response by Lieut. MARTIN J. RUSSELL. 

Chicago Quartette—" Comrades in Arms." 

Eighth Toast, . . . " The Volunteers.' 

" Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths; 
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments." 

Response by Gen. JOHN L. BEVERIDGE. 

Music — "Tramp, tramp, tramp." 

Ninth To.-vst, . . . "The Foot Soldier.' 

From bills to bayonets, from bows to breech loaders,— 
The bulwark of the Anglo-Saxon race. 

Response by Gen. L N. STILES. 

Chicago Quartette—" Marching through Georgia." 

Tenth Toast, . . "Horse and Artillery.' 

Naked without one, armies would be sightless without the other 
Response by Lieut. R. S. TUTHILL. 
Chicago Quartette—" Soldier's March." 

Eleventh Toast, . . "Sweethearts of '6i. 

" Tout pour elle; 
Rien sans elle — 
Mais qui est elle? " 

Response by M.^JOR HENRY A. HUNTINGTON. 

Chicago Quartette — "The Lovers." 



VOLUNTEER TOASTS. 
9 



(NEW.) 

Sheridan's Ride. 



Some one has framed in battle hymn 
The story of his angry ride 
With spur deep driven in charger's side. 
Bays for the poet who sweetly sings ! 
But this is the way a war song rings ! 

Hurry, Phil. Sheridan ! 

Ride ! With speed ! 

Race with the wind, 

Out-gallop the river 

To the columns thinned 

And the lines in a shiver ! 
Ride ! for the gleam of your fortunate star 
Will rekindle hope in the valley afar. 
Ride ! lest confusion your way shall bar. 
Like a storm-tossed drift of cordage and spar 
Ride ! or the glory just born of the war 
Will bleed by bullet or be marred as by scar. 

Coming is Sheridan. 

Hot ! Wild ! 

A speck on the hill, 

A shadow far flying, 

Incarnated will, 

Disaster defying ! 
Coming ! where threaten, like cataract's roar. 
The surging hosts which like wild waves pour. 
Coming ! where shocks of the lightning tore 
The oak behind and the pine before. 
Coming ! though fiends from the fiery shore 
Array in his path the furies of yore. 

Hurry, O Sheridan. 

Ride ! Hasten ! 

Rowel the steed 

Till his wild hoofs rattle ! 

Yonder they bleed 

In the storm of battle ! 
Ride ! or your flags in the valley will fall, 
Torn by the bayonets, riddled with ball ! 
Ride ! or the ranks that have answered your call 
Will famish and die in bondage and thrall ! 
Ride ! or the smoke will wind in its pall 
Guns, cannon and flag, hope, glory and all ! 

Coming is Sheridan. 

Halt ! Form ! 

His steed in a foam. 

At the front he is riding; 

The master in place is guiding ! 



Halt ! and the fear and the terror are dead. 

And they harden to heroes who hopelessly fled ! 

Form ! and the front of the battle is spread 

Where the blood of the fallen this morning was shed ! 

Charg-e ! and the foemen have fatally bled, 

And the sun that was clouded set splendid and red ! 

Glory for Sheridan ! 

Name ! Fame ! 

Bays for his brow, 

And stars for his shoulder ; 

Ne'er ean we bow 

To warrior bolder ! 
Fame ! for the army he galloped to save 
From the bar of the prison, the mold of the grave; 
Fame ! for the nation; her banner he gave 
New radiance of freedom o'er mountain and wave; 
Fame ! for proving to oppressor and slave, 
That " the land of the free " is " the home of the brave ' 



Fight early. 



Phil. Sheridan, down in the valley made 

A rule the " rebs " to soften: 
'Twas — " Out with the blade. 
Away with the spade; 

Fight Early, and fight often ! " 

But " often " was not quite often enough 
To have things done up rarely; 

So he wrote, and said, 

" Have this order read: " 

'Twas, " Boys, fight late and Early." 

But " late " and " often " gave too many rests 

To clear the valley fairly; 
" They are not bad tests," 
Thought Phil.—" but the best's 

To whip the enemy Early." 

So he says, " No matter for hour or date: 

To use the foe up squarely 
Fight him early, late 
When we thrash him straight 

They'll admit we whipped him Early." 



Officers 



COMMANDER. 

Lieut. -Gen. Philip H. Sherid.-vn, U. S. A. 



SENIOR VICE-COMMANDER. 

Col. John M.\son Loomis. 



JUNIOR VICE-COMMANDER. 
Bvt. -Brig.- Gen. Wm. E. Strong. 



RECORDER. 
Capt. RicH.^RD Robins. 



REGISTRAR. 

Major Wm. Eliot Fl'rness. 



TREASURER. 
First Lieut. Tho.m.\s C. Edwards 



CHANCELLOR. 

5vt. -Lieut. -Col. Tavlor P. Rundlet. 



CHAPLAIN. 

Chaplain Arthur Ed\v.\rds. 



COUNCIL. 

Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. James W. Forsyth, U. S. A. 

Lieut.-Col. Charles W. D.wis. Capt. Francis Morgan 

Paymaster Hor.\tio L. Wait. Capt. David H. Gile. 



COMPANIONS 



FIRST CLASS. 



First Lieut. Samuel Appleton. 

Second Lieut. Abbott L. Adams. 

Major William Appleton Amory. 

First Lieut. Alfred T. Andreas. 

Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Luther P. Bradley. 

Capt. and Bvt.-Col. John L. Burleigh. 

Bvt.-Maj. George T. Burroughs. 

Col. William L. Barnum. 

Major Samuel E. Barrett. 

Col. Wesley Brainard. 

First Lieut. David C. Bradley. 

Capt. Edward A. Blodgett. 

First Lieut. Charles T. Boal. 

Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. John L. Beveridge. 

Bvt.-Maj. -Gen. Augustus L. Chetlain. 

Bvt.-Maj. -Gen. John M. Corse. 

First Lieut. Albert L. Coe. 

Bvt. -Lieut. Col. Haswell C. Clarke. 

Lieut. Col. John S. Cooper. 

First Lieut. Benj. H. Campbell, Jr. 

Bvt.-Maj. T. C. Clarke. 

First Lieut. George Chandler. 

Capt. Eugene Cary. 

Capt. Simeon H. Crane. 

First Lieut. William H. Chenoweth. 

Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Arthur C. Ducat. 

Major Clarence H. Dyer. 

Col. T. Lyle Dickey. 

Lieut. Col. Charles W. Davis. 

First Lieut. George K. Dauchy. 

Major Lucius H. Drury. 

Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Charles W. Drew. 

Lieut. Thomas C. Edwards. 

Chaplain Arthur Edwards. 

Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. L H. Elliott. 

Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Charles Fitz Simons. 

Major John Adams Fitch. 

Major William Eliot Furness. 

Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. James W. Forsyth. 

Capt. George M. Farnham. 

Gen. U. S. Grant. 



Capt. David H. Gile. 
Bvt. -Lieut. -Col. James J. Hoyt. 
Bvt. -Capt. Amos J. Harding. 
Bvt. -Major Henry A. Huntington. 
Pas'd Ass't Surg'n Jas. Nevins Hyde. 
Major Gurdon S. Hubbard, Jr. 
Bvt. -Major Daniel N. Holway. 
Major and Surg. Andrew J. Hobart. 
First Lieut. Charles F. Hills. 
Brig.-Gen. Martin D. Hardin. 
Capt. Henry W. B. Hoyt. 
Bvt. Lieut. Col. Huntington W.Jackson 
Bvt. -Major William L. B. Jenney. 
First Lieut. James H. Jenkins. 
First Lieut. Deming Jarvis. 
Bvt.-Lieut.-Col. E. B. Kno.x. 
Capt. Charles R. E. Koch. 
Col. William B. Keeler. 
Col. John Mason Loomis. 
Maj.-Gen. John A. Logan. 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Joseph B. Leake. 
Maj.-Gen. Mortimer D. Leggett. 
First Lieut. Theodore W. Letton. 
Capt. Robert T. Lincoln. 
Capt. Roswell H. Mason. 
First Lieut. John McLaren. 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. A. C. McClurg. 
Capt. Francis Morgan. 
Capt. John T. McAuley. 
Bvt.-Maj. George Mason. 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. William Myers. 
Capt. William A. Montgomery. 
Capt. John G. McWilliams. 
Maj. Lewis B. Mitchell. 
Bvt.-Maj. W. A. McLean. 
Bvt. -Capt. Joseph Clark McBride. 
Bvt.-Lieut.-Col. J. J. McDermid. 
First Lieut. Charles F. Matteson. 
First Lieut. Gurdon G. Moore. 
Major and Surgeon Charles W. Myers. 
First Lieut. Charles S. Millard. 



Companions. 



FIRST CLASS. 



Capt. John C. Neely. 

Major and Surgeon O. W. Ni.xon. 

First Lieut. Oliver W. Norton. 

Capt. E. A. Otis. 

Capt. William L. Ogden. 

Lieut. Henry T. Porter. 

Bvt.-Maj. Sartell Prentice. 

Major George L. Paddock. 

Bvt.-Lieut.-Col. T. P. Rundlet. 

A. Ass't Paymaster Geo. S. Redfield. 

Capt. Richard Robins. 

Major and Surgeon E. O. F. Roler. 

First Lieut. John W. Ramsey. 

Major Henry A. Rust. 

Capt. Charles D. Rhodes. 

Capt. L P. Rumsey. 

First Lieut. Martin J. Russell. 

Lieut. -Gen. P. H. Sheridan. 

Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. William E. Strong. 

Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. L N. Stiles. 

First Lieut J. J. Siddall. 

Mr. George Watson Stevens. 



Bvt.-Lieut.-Col. E. R. P. Shurly. 
First Lieut. John W. Streeter. 
Major Harry L. Swords. 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Joseph Stockton. 
Bvt.-Col. Edgar D. Swain. 
Bvt.-Col. A. F. Stevenson. 
Major Samuel B. Sherer. 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen Ale.x. M. Stout. 
Bvt.-Maj.-Gen John E. Smith. 
Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. John L Thompson. 
First Lieut. Richard S. Tuthill. 
First Lieut. E. N. K. Talcott. 
Capt. Horace H. Thomas. 
First Lieut. Benj. W. Underwood. 
Capt. James C. White. 
Bvt.-Col. D. N. Welch. 
Bvt.-Maj.-Gen. Julius White. 
Paymaster Horatio L. Wait. 
Bvt.-Lieut.-Col. James R. Willett. 
Col. Nathan H. Walworth. 
Lieut. -Col. Arba N. Waterman. 
First Lieut. Archibald Winne. 



SECOND CLASS. 
First Lieut. Arthur C. Ducat, Jr., U. S. A. 



Mr. Edwards Corse. 



THIRD CLASS 



Hon. E. B. Washburne. 



Hon. Ezra B. McCagg. 



TOASTS AND RESPONSES. 



The substantial part of the banquet having been fin- 
ished the Presiding Officer, Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Wm. E. Strong, 
Junior Vice-Commander, then announced the regular 
toasts of the evening: 

First Toast, "Our Commander." 

"The substance of ten thousand soldiers," 

" We are off on a raid, 
And who is afraid, 
So long as we have gallant Phil, 
On his good black steed 
To show us the lead, 
As to Richmond he surely will?" 

Response by 

iM.-Il.-(Kol ixmtingtoit M. Isckson, m. S. fob. 

In brotherly fellowship we have gathered around the 
banquet board this evening, to pay our tribute of honor 
to a distinguished soldier. The hearty and enthusiastic 
applause with which you have greeted his name testifies 
more eloquently than any language of mine, to the secure 
lodgment he has in your hearts. If you were asked how 
he had won that place, not only in yours, but in the hearts 
of every lover of his country, by what magic his name has 
been carved high upon the scroll of fame, why it is asso- 
ciated with all that is brave, loyal, gallant and victori- 
ous, you would reply, would you not, it was because of his 
brilliant, patriotic and successful career.? 



l6 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

Success, when honorabl}'^ won, is wherever seen beau- 
tiful and glorious. Failure is a disappointment, a broken 
column, an ugly ruin. It has been truly written " tis not 
in mortals to command success," but our guest has done 
more ; he has deserved it, and thus deserving gained it. 
The most fascinating pages of history are those in which 
success is pictured. Its achievements compel admiration. 
They touch the finer chords of our nature. They inspire 
feelings akin to those we experience in gazing upon a 
lofty mountain, a magnificent cathedral, a beautiful land- 
scape, or in listening to the grand strains of an oratorio. 
In the ancient days of Greece, the victor at the Olympian 
games was rewarded by a wreath of olives ; composed only 
of leaves, it was yet deemed of priceless value, for the 
crowned hero was ever after distinguished. Poets sang of 
arms and the man and an admiring people raised his 
statue among the sacred groves of Olympia. In Rome, 
the General who gained a great victory was honored with 
a triumph — the highest military honor that could be ren- 
dered. The plunder captured from the enemy, the pris- 
oners of war, music, flowers, incense, chariots, arches, and 
even the grave and dignified senators and magistrates, as 
the pageant moved on from Campus Martius to Capito- 
line Hill, all contributed their part to exalt the conqueror. 

The success we celebrate is not the success that "makes 
fools admired and villains honest." It is not the success of 
accident, which bursts forth like a meteor and as suddenly 
disappears, leaving darkness behind. It is not that ac- 
quired by selfishness, that is tinctured with envy or refuses 
to lend a helping hand. It is not created by cruel and 
bloody wars for dominion, by murder, treason, or tramp- 
ling upon human rights. It is not the success of an Alex- 



COL. JACKSON S RESPONSE. ly 

ander, who loved conquest only for its glory, and sought 
to be called the son of Jupiter; not of Cjesar, who defied 
the laws of his country to gain supreme control, and fell a 
victim of assassination ; not of that remarkable man, Na- 
poleon Bonaparte, who was finally declared an outlaw by 
the nations of Europe, and died a prisoner upon a rocky 
island of the Atlantic; but it is the success established 
upon morals, worth, courage, justice and honor. It is that 
which brings in its train generous blessings to mankind ; 
that which in the trying days of the revolution character- 
ized the fathers of the republic ; tliat which twenty years 
ago broke the chains of slavery and reunited a divided 
country, and that which to-day is splendidly personified 
by the Lieutenant-General of the armies of the United 
States. 

On this, the anniversary of his birth, it is well for us 
to pause and contemplate his career, and to cherish the 
example which it presents to us and to posterity. I shall 
indulge in no panegyric. His actions require none ; they 
speak louder than trumpet-tongued words. Born among 
the hills of Ohio, in a state which has ever kept abreast, 
with its sister free states in the march of progress, a state 
distinguished for statesmen, jurists and generals, who have 
with honor filled the highest offices in the government it 
is not remarkable that in the appreciation of the blessings 
of freedom, in loyalty and devotion to his country's cause, 
he should be the peer of any citizen in the land. At West 
Point, where he graduated in 1853 ; on frontier duty along 
the Rio Grande; scouting against the Indians in Wash- 
ington Territory; complimented by General Scott for 
gallantry while defendmg the cascades of the Columbia 
River, he acquired that varied experience and military 



KANQUETS TO LT.-CiEN. SHERIDAN. 



discipline and knowledge which were so faithfully to serve 
him upon many a hard-fought field, and which were to 
gain for him imperishable renown. When treason raised 
her parricidal hand, and Sumter's walls were crumbled, 
and the flag of the Union lowered; when the indignant and 
mighty North solemnly resolved that the walls should be 
rebuilt, and the flag again flung to the breeze ;, while the 
contending hosts were being marshalled along the banks 
of the Potomac, and the sound of battle could be heard 
within the very walls of the Capitol, our commander, then 
a lieutenant of infantry, was stationed in the far-off terri- 
tory of Oregon, patiently awaiting his summons to action. 
Truly "he was a youth to fortune and to fame unknown." 
Tlie news of battle slowly penetrated that distant border, 
and doubt you not, that the spirit of him who was destined 
to be known as the Great Trooper chafed and was restless 
with restraint ? 

We see him now landing at New York in the melan- 
choly days of November; then engaged in what must 
have been an uncongenial occupation, auditing claims; 
then a quartermaster and commissary in the Pea Ridge 
and Halleck's campaign in Mississippi. Whatever he un- 
dertook was well done; his time had not yet arrived, but 
it was soon to come. Unexpectedly, without political in- 
fluence, without solicitation, by an inspiration almost, he 
was placed at the head of a cavalry regiment. 

To the State of Michigan belongs the high distinction 
of trusting him and giving him an opportunity of striking 
sturdy blows for the Union, and so well did he repay this 
confidence that within thirty days from the time the eagle 
graced his shoulders, lie was entitled to wear a star. 

From his promotion to the colonelcy of the second 



COL. Jackson's response. ig 

Michigan in May, 1862, dates that series of remarkable 
battles and victories with which his name will be indisso- 
lubly linked. Wherever he fought, whether in the west 
under Rosecrans or Thomas, whether at Stone River, or 
by moonlight scaling the heights of Missionary Ridge, 
whether in the East under Grant, or with an independent 
command, his single object was to defeat the foe. There 
was no thought of fame, he let that take care of itself. He 
was always the faithful soldier; unlike others, he never 
>ost the road ; the wagons never blocked his march. If the 
bridges were burnt, he made new ones. He was never 
accused of being slow, or of failing to come up. He 
wanted no better guide to direct his men than the sound 
of the enemy's guns. 

Demosthenes defined eloquence to be action, action, 
action. Sheridan's definition of a General, judging from 
himself, must be energy, energy, energy. He was cease- 
less in his vigilance, constantly studying the maps of 
the country, acquiring all the information possible of 
the strength, condition and movements of the enemy, and 
supplying the wants of his men. No soldiers were better 
equipped than his. Of recognized military skill, rich in 
resources and expedients, he was equal to any emergency. 
On the field, he was magnetic, cheerful and confident. 
Badeau describes him as the " incarnation of battle." The 
victories in the Shenandoah and around Petersburgh read 
like the tales of romance. You recall how they electri- 
fied the North. We can imagine with what heartfelt joy the 
great and patient Lincoln, that noble character, burdened 
with the responsibilities of the nation, heard the welcome 
tidings. To him they must have seemed like the harbin- 
ger of peace. To the victorious General he telegraphed 



20 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

September lo : " Have just heard of your splendid victory. 
God bless you all, officers and men." Again he tendered 
to him the thanks of the nation and his own personal ad- 
miration and gratitude for the splendid work of October 
19, and again wrote that "for personal gallantry, military 
skill and just confidence in the courage and patriotism of 
your troops displayed by you at Cedar River, whereby 
under the blessings of Providence, your routed army was 
reorganized, a great national disaster avoided, and a bril- 
liant victory achieved over the rebels for the third time, in 
pitched battle, within thirty days, you are appointed a 
Major-General in the United States army." Congress and 
many of the States also passed resolutions of thanks, " for 
achieving a series of victories which will shine resplen- 
dently in our military annals, with a lustre as enduring as 
history;" and Grant, the unselfish, undaunted soldier and 
patriot, telegraphed to Stanton that a salute of one hun- 
dred guns had been fired from each of the armies around 
Petersburgh, in honor of the victory, and added ' turning 
what bid fair to be a disaster into a glorious victory, stamps 
Sheridan what I have always thought of him, one of the 
ablest of Generals." 

In the history of battles, the battle of Cedar Creek is 
unique — it stands out like a bas-relief; it has been cele- 
brated in glowing verse. We can see him now — then only 
thirty-three years of age, riding furiously upon the demor- 
alized field, both rider and horse covered with dust, rising 
in his stirrups, swinging his hat, shouting to his men to 
turn about, that they were not beaten; reforming the lines, 
and then with the force of a Niagara, sweeping on and 
seizing victory from the jaws of defeat. Never before was 
such a magical effect produced by the appearance of man. 



COL. JACKSON S RESPONSE. 



"One blast upon his bugle horn was worth a thousand 
men," and his presence " had the substance of ten thous- 
and." We can see him at Five Forks, where he seized, 
amid shot and shell, that bullet-riddled flag, which has 
followed him on many a field, and which now hangs so 
gracefully and peacefully over us, and "plunging into the 
charge " at the head of his troops, led them to victory. 
We can see him again with untiring energy, pressing on 
day and night, by the left flank, following up success after 
success, never resting until Sheridan "the inevitable" as 
he was called by Pickett, planted himself like a rock, 
directly in front of Lee's retreating column at Appomat- 
tox Court House, and held it in his clenched hand; the 
hour of surrender had arrived; the last shot was fired; 
the white flag was raised, and the war was over. 

He has been compared to Murat, pronounced by Napo- 
leon to be the best cavalry ofticer in Europe, but Murat 
was condemned to death by a court martial of his former 
subjects and shot. He has been compared to Ney, who 
said a marshal of France never surrenders, but Ney, while 
a soldier under Louis XVHI, and leading an army against 
Napoleon, whom he promised under oath to bring back in 
an iron cage, not only surrendered, but transferred, with- 
out a shot, his command to the enemy of his King. Ney, 
too, was found guilty of treason and shot in the Gardens 
of the Luxembourg. He has been compared to Stonewall 
Jackson, but Stonewall Jackson violated his oath, solemnly 
taken, to obey the constitution and the laws of his country. 
He resembles more the famous knight of the olden time. 
Bayard the Chevalier "' sans peur et sans reproche " and of 
whom his biographer wrote, that " three qualities marked 
him for a perfect soldier; he was a greyhound for attack, 
a wild boar in defence and a wolf in retreat." 



HANQUETS T() LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 



Of all those who attained distinction during the rebel- 
lion, not one to-day stands higher in the admiration of 
the American people than he. He is the beau ideal of a 
soldier. His fame is the natural growth of his life. It has 
come to him unsought. K^either a desire for political dis- 
tinction has diverted him, nor a wish to acquire wealth 
distracted him from his profession. He is the tried ser- 
vant, the modest gentleman and worthy citizen. His name 
is the embodiment of loyalty and gallantry. 

The traveler standing in the beautiful Valley of Cham- 
ounix, at the base of Mont Blanc, fails to realize the stu- 
pendous height of that snow-capped peak, but when miles 
distant, he turns back and beholds it, towering far above 
its compeers, he recognizes its claim to be called the 
monarch of mountains. 

It is so with the war. Nearly twenty years have rolled 
by since we bade farewell " to the plumed troops, the 
neighing steed, the shrill trump, the ear-piercing fife, the 
royal banner and all quality, pride, pomp and circum- 
stance of glorious war;" but as our judgments have ma- 
tured and we realize the difficulties overcome, the noble 
lives sacrificed, the object accomplished and the bless- 
ings spread all over the land, the memories of those days, 
with their scenes and actors, become precious and price- 
less. 

But I must not longer dwell upon this fascinating theme. 
As the years continue to roll on and we recall these pleas- 
ant gatherings, it will be with pride that you, sir, have been 
our commander ; that we have known you in peace, as 
well as in war, and be assured, sir, that while ours will be 
the loss, the Illinois Commandery will rejoice with you 
for whatever fresh laurels and additional honors a grateful 



c;en. Sheridan's response. 



23 



country may bestow upon you. That your life may be 
spared many years ; that abundance, prosperity and haj)- 
piness may attend you and yours, is, I am sure, not only 
the hearty wish of every one present, but also that of every 
loyal citizen from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 

Loud calls being made for "Our Commander," 
Tt.-f^rn. p. 1. ^brribaii 
replied as follows : 

Comrades and Gentleimen of the Commandery of 
THE Loyal Legion of the State of Illinois: 
The consideration and honor conferred upon me by 
this commandery, not only in my association with its 
members, but by this elegant and sumptuous banquet 
here to-night, and by a similar one on my birthday last 
year, fills my heart with emotions which no words of mine 
can adequately express. Mingled with these feelings, 
gentlemen, are thoughts that these honors are extended 
to me by a gallant and select body of officers and com- 
rades, who fought, and were willing to sacrifice their lives, 
to prove that free government, by the people and for the 
people, is a success. You were not only engaged in a 
contest which vindicated the principles and maintained 
the permanency of republican institutions, and emanci- 
pated the 4,000,000 slaves in this country, but you were 
engaged in a contest which set to work, and gave strength 
to the idea of freedom in all other countries on the face 
of the earth. It is, then, to men who were leaders in such 
a contest, that I am indebted for the courtesies extended 
to me on this and other occasions. 

Since the organization of the Loyal Legion, I have felt 



24 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

a great interest in it. Its standard is elevated, and it 
meets on a plane where no selfish interests or partisan pur- 
poses are permitted to exist, and no one can belong to it 
on whose record there is a stain. While I have been 
thus interested in the society of the Loyal Legion, gener- 
ally, I have been especially interested in the Commandery 
of the State of Illinois, which did me the honor to make 
me its commander; not only on account of this honor, 
which I highly prize, but also because of my affection for 
and association with its members. 

I doubt if any commandery in the United States has 
been so careful in the selection of its members, and the 
effect is visible in the honorable character and bearing of 
the membership. 

The sight of this beautiful picture of an event at Five 
Forks, so personal to myself, which you have presented 
to me, with the old battle-flag I carried on that occasion, 
fills my eyes and touches my heart, and I feel truly grate- 
ful to you, comrades, for this additional token of your 
esteem. 

All hail, then, comrades, long life and happiness to you 
all, is the heartfelt and sincere wish of your commander. 



GEN. LEAKE S RESPONSE. 25 



Second Toast, " The Federal Union." 

It has been preserved. 

Response by 

§bt.-^rig.-(gm. |oscplj §. 'gtnkc, l\. ^. Hols 

The federal union has been preserved. "Government 
of the people, by the people and for the people has not 
perished from the earth." The United States of America 
has not passed into history as a broken league of discord- 
ant states, each claiming to be greater than the united 
whole, but is still a nation which has a government strong 
enough to enforce its right to exist against any foe from 
within or without. Its glorious flag does not trail in the 
dust, but proudly floats aloft in the free air, fading from 
the misty sight at night only again to receive the fond kiss 
of the sun at his every rising. The history of the origin, 
rise and progress of the colonies planted in the new 
world, merging into that of the great Republic has not 
again been divided, to be looked back upon as the once 
common record of separated and hostile peoples. The 
traditions, romance and poetry which have gathered 
around the achievements of the planters of liberty and 
the founders of free government on this continent are 
still our common heritage and our unpartitioned posses- 
sion. The immortal declaration of independence, the 
grandest enunciation of ]>olitical principles ever made to 
a startled world, remains the work of our forefathers 
alone. The constitution which our fathers ordained and 
established to form a more perfect union between thirteen 
states inhabited by three millions of people, scattered 



26 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

along the borders of the eastern ocean, firmly but gently 
holds to-day in a still more perfect union fifty millions of 
people, who have erected twenty-five new states, with 
more to follow, upon like free foundations as the old and 
who are only checked in their onward march by the roll- 
ing surges of the western sea. That constitution has 
preserved popular liberty clearly defined and carefully 
guarded under constitutional forms and laws from lapsing 
into anarchy. It established a central government with 
inherent power enough to attain the objects for which it 
was created without becoming a centralized despotism 
trenching upon the inalienable rights of the individual 
man to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The 
purpose our fathers expressed in the preamble of that 
constitution has been fully accomplished. " Wisdom is 
justified of her children." Under thiswise and free form 
of government justice has been established, domestic 
tranquillity has at last been insured, the common defense 
has been provided for with what cost of treasure and 
more precious lives we know too well ; the general wel- 
fare has been promoted, and the blessings of liberty were 
secured to the fathers, have been enjoyed by us, and, un- 
less we yet prove unworthy, will be transmitted with this 
government to posterity unimpaired. We have demon- 
strated to the world and to ourselves the possibility of a 
permanent republican government. We have had no 
monarch toward whom we might develop a fanciful senti- 
ment of personal loyalty. Our institutions have not 
come down to us from a remote past to charm and en- 
slave us by a reverence for antiquity. No state church 
has indoctrinated us in obedience to wrongful authority, 
on which itself was dependent, as a part of our duty of 



GEN. Leake's response. 27 



obedience to God. This government has securely rested 
upon the loyalty of the people to their own law, and their 
profound reverence for just authority springing from and 
exercised with the express consent of the majority of the 
governed. 

Standing upon this mount of assured preservation, 
those who have been loyal to this union have passed 
through many valleys of deep shadows, many of them as 
impenetrable to mortal vision as that of death, pierced only 
by the eye of that faith which could " see the glory of the 
coming of the Lord." For more than half the period of 
the existence of this government, the heart of the patriot 
has been burdened by doubts and anxious care for the 
permanence of free institutions, threatened as they were 
by a slowly solidifying, factious, rebellious and at last 
defiant minority. The storm broke, and when it had 
cleared, the burden of those doubts had disappeared 
in the whirlwind that had passed. The mutterings of the 
secessionists have long since been choked into silence. The 
threat of disunion is no longer heard in the land and 
would disturb the peace of none if it were. The irre- 
pressible conflict has been repressed. The nation which 
the prophetic statesman feared could not long endure 
half slave and half free has endured, thank God, all free. 
We would be dead to the noblest sentiments of the human 
soul if we did not continually rejoice that we have been 
permitted to bear our part in the mighty conflict by which 
this nation has been preserved as a nation of freemen. 
The patient endurance and heroic struggle in marches, 
battles and sieges through whirh the final victory came 
was our work and that of our comrades in arms. While 
he that girdeth on the harness is strictly enjoined not to 



28 BANQUETS TO LT.-OKN. SHERIDAN. 

boast himself as he that putteth it off, there is no injunc- 
tion to restrain us who put it off so long ago from mod- 
erately boasting when by ourselves of the battles we 
fought and the victories we won. Therefore, as we sit 
to-night around this festive board to celebrate the anni- 
versary of that natal day which gave us one of our trusted 
leaders in that ensanguined strife, let us rejoice and be 
exceeding glad that we had the endurance to fight out 
the contest to a triumphant issue, and that the flag under 
whose waving folds we sit is still the starry emblem of a 
government which has preserved its beneficent authority 
over the whole of the national domain, and is honored 
among all the nations of the earth. 

But we must not be unmindful that the contest of which 
we bore the brunt took place many years ago. The des- 
tinies of the union which has been so wonderfully pre- 
served are fast passing into the control of those to whom 
the fact of the rebellion is scarcely a memory. We have 
owed a duty to the coming generation as sacred as that 
we have sought to discharge to the one which is passing 
away. The continued preservation of this government 
and of liberty under it must soon be intrusted to younger 
hearts and hands than ours. If we have . instilled into 
the coming generation the lessons of patriotism which 
our fathers taught, the union will continue to be preserved 
in the future as it has been in the past. American patri- 
otism is not based upon mere local attachment to any 
particular district of country. We easily change our 
places of residence. The inhabitant of the mountain 
seeks the plain, and the dwellers in the valleys press on 
to mountain ranges beyond. Our patriotism is an un- 
dying love for the free institutions under which we live, 



OEN. LKAKE S RESPONSE. 29 

and which we regaid as peculiarly our own. If in the wild 
desire for excessive and useless wealth which has taken pos- 
sion of so many hearts the great majority still holds fast 
to the principle that all just governments are founded 
only to promote the happiness and secure the well being 
of the governed, and have learned to love equal justice 
to all, more than the selfish aggrandizement of a few, then 
the union and government of these United States will 
ever endure, because enshrined in the hearts of those 
who are at the same time the source of its sovereign 
authority and its loyal and obedient citizens. It is 
profoundly true that "righteousness exalteth a nation." 
This nation will continue to exist and be exalted among 
the nations so long as its people shall be willing to fight 
for and shall rejoice in the triumph of the cause which is 
just and right for all conditions of men alike. While 
then we rejoice that in our history as a people the right 
has heretofore triumphed and our union has been main- 
tained, let us never forget 

" To praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation. 
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, 
And this be our motto, ' In God is our trust;' 
And the star spangled banner, oh, long may it wave. 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." 



BANQUETS TO I.T.-ORN. SHERIDAN. 



Third Toast, "The Army." 

Its muster roll is smaller than the list of its achievements. 

ReSPONSE BY 

glajor lailUam €Uot ixmxtsB, II. §. Dols. 

Companions: I am a poor substitute for the gallant sol- 
dier, who was first asked to respond to this toast. No 
summer soldier he, but one who bravely, uncomplainingly 
bore the heat and labor of the day in the service of his 
country, when danger threatened and the leaden hail of 
war was decimating our battalions, and he bears upon his 
body marks of which he may be justly proud, of the suf- 
fering and pain he endured upon the field and under the 
surgeon's knife, to remind us ever of the devotion and 
valor of the United States Army as represented by him, 
while I, — I can boast no wounds and show no scars. 

Yet do not think I feel slighted in being asked only to 
supply another's place. I am honored by the invitation 
to try and take General Hardin's post at this banquet, 
and surely the sentiment I reply to, here in the presence 
of the <^rea/ General^ our dearly loved and respected com- 
mander, to honor whom on this, his anniversary, we come 
together to-night, whose voice was ever the clarion call 
to victory, and his presence in itself a host, able to turn 
defeat to triumph, is one to make an orator of the least 
eloquent of men. 

The Army of the United States ! Who does not know 
its worth, its gallantry, devotion and heroism on many a 
stricken field, in many a bloody fight, in hundreds of bat- 



MAJ. FURNESS' RESPONSE. 31 



ties, on the dreary march and on the frontier posts of 
danger, since first the flag of our Republic floated on the 
breezes of Heaven, one hundred years ago. 

Who of us is ignorant of the sterling value to our 
country of that class of educated officers, the foster chil- 
dren of the Republic whom West Point has nurtured for 
us, to command this army. Bravery is the birthright of 
the Anglo-Saxon and the American — yes, of every free- 
born people — but we who have served through a great; 
war know, and can well afford to acknowledge the inesti- 
mable value of skilled training in the men who must lead 
control and organize the rank and file. 

In valor and patriotism we were not behind them, for 
these are qualities not dep'^ndent on special education, 
but are born with every gentleman. Yet we need not, 
we do not, shame to grant the great worth their mili- 
tary knowledge was to us and to our country in the hours 
of her sore need. 

And we know, too, something of the injustice too often 
done to our army and its officers by envious civilian and 
popular demagogue. 

All honor to the Army of the United States. Truly is 
its muster roll shorter than the list of its achievements. 
Yet amid all strictures, cavil and carping, trust me, 
brothers, it has a place well earned and warm in the 
heart of this people, for its generals have never sought to 
be dictators nor its regiments praetorian guards, and with 
them the safety of the country and the liberties of the 
people are secure. And long, long may it be so. 



32 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 



Fourth Toast, "The Navy." 

" Don't give up the ship(s)! " 
Response by 

^assjb §isst. SurgEOir |amcs llebhts ^nbc, late M. S. ^afa]). 

Mr. Commander and Brothers of theCommanderv : 
When your committee first did me the honor to ask me 
to respond to this inspiring toast, I felt a hesitation natural 
to one called upon to represent an entire branch of the 
service in this distinguished company of soldiers. But I 
remembered the words with which an eloquent member 
of our order introduced his speech on a similar occasion 
last year. He reminded us tliat there were no reporters 
present, and that we were assembled in the midst not of 
critics, but of friends. I have, therefore, ventured to 
do what under other circumstances I shou'd not have 
attempted, and what I have very rarely attempted since I 
was a college lad, namely, to write some verses which I 
have dedicated to the gallant soldier in whose honor we 
are assembled, and which with your kind permission I will 
read to you as a response to this toast. They are entitled 

Asleep and Awake. 

Hither it is the war ship came. 
When she had taught us how a name 

Can stir the pulse and blood; 
Here, fast in the Yard, like a captive thing, 
The lazy tides her hull scarce swing 

Across the harbor mud. 



SURG. HYDE S RESPONSE. 



33 



Lies she like one who long has slept, 
Lies like a wreck, the sea has swept 

Of topmast, stay, and boom, — 
Lies with stark forms on either hand. 
As dead queens lie, for a loyal land, 

In the hush of a marble tomb. 

Rises, out there, the city's hum, — 

The voice heard here is stricken dumb ! — 

She is stripped of the gay attire 
She wore, when we marveled at the sight 
Of colors that flashed, like the ray of light 

That is gilding yonder spire. 

This is the picture, but instead 

Others take shape, as we turn and tread 

These deserted decks alone, — 
Scenes that were real, and yet they seem 
To mix and melt, as in a dream 

Of a day long past and gone. 

Again flies the signal. All aboard ! — 
She chafes at the cable, provision stored. 

Steam up, and the foresail free ! 
Eyes, veiled with the tears that women weep. 
Watch the gallant ship with steady sweep 

Spring to the swell of the sea. 

Across the poop and the cutters' thwarts 
We see the black guns at the ports, 

The white yards squarely set, 
The blue-capped tars, aloft, alow. 
The flemished coils on the deck of snow, 

And the gleam of a bayonet. 



34 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

We hear again the cheery bells, 

And the boatswain's pipe, as it sinks and swells 

See the pennant nod to the sun. 
The wheel, that a sinewy arm obeys, 
The lace of shrouds, and the kitten that plays 

At the foot of a Parrott gun. 

We see her again on a wave's white crest, 
When a blood-red sun dies at the west 

From the heart of a leaden sky ; 
And a hurricane, born of a gathering gale. 
Whips out of her stays a thundering sail. 

That shrieks as it washes by ; 

Tears a salted spray from ink-black waves, 
That strikes the cheek like a knife that shaves, 

And is flung in fury back; 
The frigate reels through billows that roar 
And a deluge against her bulwarks pour. 

Till the stout planks groan and crack. 

Here at the prow, if you have no fear. 
Look in the face of the hell, so near 

That you sway at its very lip ; 
Then watch the top-men as they clutch 
The dizzy lifts, and almost touch 

A gulf with every dip! 

This is the school where first they learned 
How deeds are wrought, how laurels earned ; 

We read the secret here 
Why they who face the ocean's rage 
With weaker enemies engage, 

And laugh at the foe and at fear ! 



SURG. Hyde's response. 35 



Again we see her. Ship and crew 

Are the same ; but the sky above is blue, 

And milky-blue the sea. 
Lapping the coral in the bay, 
With tides that know not to betray 

The secrets there that be. 

The channel is sown with missiles of death, 
Fit to burst with the pulse of a breath ! 

That bastioned fort on the crag 
Covers a fleet and an armored ram, 
Over them floating a painted sham, 

The folds of a rebel flag. 

We see our ships ! We name each pair! 
We greet the gallant flag-ship there !— 

God help them all this day! — 
Through crashing shot and bursting shell, 
With a courage that no words can tell. 

They force a fiery way. 

And he who planned, who cheered, who led, 
Was where the shot flew overhead, 

Bolts thick from battle clouds ; — 
What might betide, what might befall, 
Here was the brave old admiral, 

Lashed fast in his main shrouds ! 

The world knew of his worth, the day 
He passed the forts in Mobile Bay, 

And his name shone like a star! 
When he battered the plated Tennessee, 
His wooden walls were a sight to see, 

Rarer than Trafalgar I 



36 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

But little the world knew, as we knew, 
How gentle was his heart and true. 

The gracious smile he wore, 
The modesty that banished pride. 
The vigorous frame, that age defied 

And could bend like a boy's at an oar 

Step to this spot. Why, here is yet 
The very plank which once was wet 

With the blood of a dying lad ! 
This crimson skin such whiteness wore, 
And this brave smile, few months before, 

A mother's breast made glad. 

His father rests a space his plow, 
A sister's needle is idle now, — 

They are dreaming. When shall they see 
Their sailor boy with eyes of fire, 
A nation's hope for his heart's desire, 

Who could die for you and me ! 

Look over the side. As smooth 'tis there, 
As when the Tecumseh struck a snare, 

More horrid than sunken rocks; 
One fearful belch of a demon's breath, 
And a hundred men sank to their death, 

Like caged rats in a box ! 

When he saw the Monitor was lost, 
We know how Craven kept his post. 

With the water at his knee ; 
The casemate shutter wide was swung. 
One plunge, and he knew he should be flung 

Safe on the open sea ! 



SURG. HYDE S RESPONSE. 37 

But Stay ! Inside that casemate wide 

Three men kept guard alone ; 
And the captain brave two lives would save, 

With no thought of his own ; 
So the two burst by with a dreadful cry, — 

And he sank like a stone ! 

These were our brothers. These did keep 
The mid-watch, which to us in sleep 

A dream of childhood brought ; 
We knew the color of each cheek. 
We knew the tale each tongue could speak, 

We sang the songs they taught. 

And we had seen upon this breast 
A portrait which the heart confessed 

Was to itself most dear; 
And here, a maiden's fair young face. 
And here, a ringlet's tender grace. 

And love's last token, here ! 

Hold, are we dreaming ! Twenty years, 
With all that saddens, all that cheers. 

Have hurried by since then ! 
And some of us have turned to trade; 
And some to law and physic strayed ; 

And most are grey-haired men. 

And is this all ? Ah, ripening seed 
Must ever answer to the need 

Of the blossoming springtide; 
We, who these comrades' memories share. 
With them we live, by them we swear 

That not in vain they died. 



38 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

The peace that cost them such a price 
Our children's children shall suffice; 

And in war, if that must come, 
There never shall fail a sailor's hail. 
And a soldier boy to respond with joy 

To the roll of the nation's drum ! 



CAPT. OTIS' RESPONSE. 39 



Fifth Toast, "The Heroes of the Shenandoah." 

" We fought Early from daylight until between six and seven 
o'clock. * * * We just sent them whirling through Winches- 
ter." 

Response by 
€^i. 6. il. (Otk, m. ^. Dols. 

It is with some misgiving that I attempt to respond for 
the "Army of the Shenandoah," for the reason that it 
was not my good fortune to have served in it, or to have 
participated in those splendid campaigns which have 
made it historic. 

But personal knowledge is not necessary to recall those 
stirring incidents, which are as familiar to us all as house- 
hold words. 'I"he Valley of the Shenandoah was literally 
a battle ground during a large portion of the war, and the 
soldiers on both sides got to know every stream, and mile- . 
post, and chimney from one end of it to the other. Its 
inhabitants knew by experience what war means. They 
were forced to change their allegiance with every march 
of the army ; they would be under the " stars and stripes " 
in the morning; by noon they would be subject to the 
" stars and bars," and by night they were again under the 
shelter of the old flag. They did not have to read his- 
tories or study official reports to understand battles, for 
nearly every farm had been the scene of a battle, and its 
owner was fortunate if his home had not been taken for 
a hospital, or perhaps sacrificed to the terrible necessities 
of war. 

It is in no spirit of criticism, but stating the simple truth 



40 BANQUETS TO LT.-GF:N. SHERIDAN. 

of history to say that the operations in the Valley of the 
Shenandoah were far from being a subject of pride to our 
arms, during some of the earlier years of the war. Divided 
commands and discordant councils were often legitimately 
followed by defeat and disaster, until it had become to us 
literally the " Valley of Humiliation." 

But all this was changed by the genius of Sheridan and 
the gallantry of his men, and at the close of the war, we 
could point with honest pride to those brilliant victories 
unsurpassed by any during the entire contest. 

But I am to speak of the Heroes of the Shenandoah ; of 
those by whose valor and courage these splendid suc- 
cesses were won. What associations cluster around the 
sentiment ! 

I would recall to your minds the long rolls of those 
who fell in line of battle, with musket and saber in hand, 
and whose unknown but honored graves mark every bat- 
tle field and skirmish line of that " dark and bloody 
ground " from the Potomac to Lynchburg. They laid 
down their lives that the nation might live, from a sense 
of duty, and were neither spurred on by ambition nor 
cheered by hopes of reward or fame. Their names even 
may be forgotten, but the recollection of their gallant deeds 
will remain green forever in the hearts of a grateful people. 

Peace to their honored ashes! 

But there are other Heroes of the Shenandoah among 
us ; some of them members of this commandery, men 
now engaged in civil pursuits, whose faces, beginning to 
be marked by age, light up with enthusiasm, as they 
recall the days when they charged with the old " Sixth 
Corps," or under Merritt, or Custer, or Torbett, rode for- 
ward into the very front of battle. 



CAPT. OTIs' RESPONSE. 4J 



It is an experience that they can look back to with hon- 
est pride. Thackeray says: " Bravery never goes out of 
fashion," and the gallant deeds these men did in the val- 
ley will neither be forgotten nor grow stale by repetition. 
But above and beyond all others, we have the Hero 
of the Shenandoah, in the person of our honored com- 
mander and guest to-night, and whose presence must not 
prevent me from saying, that to him, more, far more, than 
to any other man, living or dead, is our country indebted 
for those splendid victories, which at last not only left us 
in peaceful possession of the Valley of the Shenandoah, 
with every opposing army destroyed, but which went far 
toward ending the war. 

We naturally associate the names of our great leaders 
with those of the armies they commanded. 

When we mention the "Army of the Cumberland '' the 
mind goes back to the grand and historic figure of 
Thomas; the "march to the sea" and the "capture of 
Vicksburg " bring before us the familiar faces of Grant 
and Sherman; so, wherever the achievements of the 
"Army of the Shenandoah" are mentioned, we turn in- 
stinctively to Sheridan, who, whether " twenty miles 
away," or riding toward the roar of the enemy's guns, or 
forming and leading his resistless columns of attack, 
always the very incarnation and genius of battle, is ever 
the head and soul of the "Army of the Shenandoah." 

His motto was always, "fight Early and fight often," 
and whenever he did fight, the rebels " were sent whirling 
through Winchester " or down the valley a disordered mob. 
When our history of the war comes to be written, and 
the impartial verdict made up, I predict that no man will 
stand higher on the roll of our great captains, for all the 
qualities of a gallant soldier, than Philip H. Sheridan. 



42 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

His was not the success of chance; he was far more 
than a mere dashing cavalry soldier ; he achieved success 
by deserving it, and could plan a campaign as skillfully as 
he could win a battle. He had the power to prepare and 
to act, the brain to plan, and the courage to execute, and I 
predict that his campaigns in the valley will be studied 
by the soldiers of the future, as models of the art of war. 

That he may long continue to enjoy the honors so 
bravely won and so modestly worn, is not only your wish 
and mine, but that of every man who loves his country, 
and honors those who have served it so loyally and so well. 



COL. rundlet's recitation. 43 



Sixth Toast, " The Fallen. 

" But whether on the scaffold high, 
Or in the battle's van, 
The fittest place where man can die 
Is where he dies for man." 

Recitation, "Just Eleven," by 

ibt.-ft.-crol. ^ajilor |. punblct. tl. *. ^ols. 

Three years ago, to-day, 

We raised our hands to Heaven, 
And on the rolls of muster 

Our names were thirty-seven; 
There were a thousand stalwart bayonets, 

And the swords were thirty-seven, 
x\.s we took the oath of service 

With our right hands raised to Heaven. 

Oh ! 'twas a gallant day, 

In memory still adored, 
That day of our sunbright nuptials 

With the musket and the sword; 
Shrill ra^ng the fifes, the bugles blared, 

And beneath a cloudless heaven 
Twinkled a thousand bayonets. 

While the swords were thirty-seven. 

Of the thousand stalwart bayonets 

Two hundred march to-day; 
Hundreds lie in the Southwest swamps 

And hundreds in Virginia clay; 



44 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

While other hundreds — less happy — drag 

Their mangled limbs around, 
And envy the deep, calm, blessed sleep 

Of the battle-field's holy ground. 

For the swords — one night, a week ago — 

The remnant — just eleven — 
Gathered around a banqueting board 

With seats for thirty-seven; 
There were two limped in on crutches, 

rind two had each but a hand, 
To pour the wine and raise the cup. 

As we toasted "Our Flag and our Land! " 

And the room seemed filled with whispers 

As we looked at those vacant seats. 
And with choking throats we pushed aside 

The rich but untasted meats; 
Then in silence we brimm'd our glasses. 

As we stood up — just eleven — 
.\nd bowed, as we drank to the loved, — but the dead. 

Who had made us tliirty-seven. 



LT. Russell's response. 45 



Seventh Toast, "The Loyal Legion." 

Child of the Cincinnati. 
Response by 
#rst It. iXarliu |. Jlusscll, 1\. $. Dols. 

Mr. Comm.^nder and Gentlemen: When in 1783 
peace had come to close " the purple testament of bleeding 
war," and the soldiers of the Revolution, who were spared 
to witness the glorious consummation for which they had 
struggled long and sometimes hopelessly, lay for the most 
part in the cantonments along the Hudson, it was with a 
feeling to which no one here is a stranger that their offi- 
cers contemplated a severance of the close intimacies and 
pervading fellowship of the camp and the campaign. It 
was heartily their wish to perpetuate their friendships, to aid 
one another in the struggle for life upon which most of 
them were to enter at a disadvantage, and to instill into 
the minds of youth love for the republic to the establish- 
ment of which it was their fortune, under the providence 
of God and by the aid of his majesty of France, to make 
an essential contribution. The suggestion of General 
Knox, the artillerist of the Revolution, was eagerly ac- 
cepted, and just a century ago, at the headquarters of the 
Baron Von Steuben, was formed the order of the Cincin- 
nati, whose last survivor of the first class would have 
heard, had he been spared a few years longer, the first 
guns of the war of the Rebellion. 

In the full and stately phrase of that day, it was set 
forth that " to perpetuate as well the remembrance of the 
war of independence as the mutual friendships that have 



46 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

been formed under the pressure of common danger, and in 
many instances cemented by the blood of the parties, the 
officers of the American army do hereby, in the most sol- 
emn manner, associate, constitute and combine them- 
selves into one society of friends, to endure as long as 
they shall endure, or any of their eldest male posterity, 
and in failure thereof the collateral branches, who may be 
judged worthy of becoming its supporters and members. 

"The officers of the American army having been gen- 
erally taken from the citizens of America, possess high ven- 
eration for the character of the illustrious Roman, Lucius 
Quintius Cincinnatus, and being resolved to follow his 
example by returning to their citizenship, they think they 
may with propriety denominate themselves 'The Society 
of the Cincinnati.' " 

The principles they enunciated were "An incessant 
devotion to preserve inviolate those exalted rights and 
liberties of human nature for which they have fought and 
bled, and without which the high rank of a rational be- 
ing is a curse instead of a blessing. 

"An unalterable determination to promote and cherish 
between the respective states that union and national 
honor so essentially necessary to their happiness and the 
future dignity of the American empire. 

" To render permanent the cordial affection subsisting 
among the officers. This spirit will dictate brotherly 
kindness in all things, and particularly extend to the most 
substantial acts of beneficence, according to the ability 
of the society, toward those officers and their families who 
unfortunately may be under the necessity of receiving it." 

This was the foundation of the order of the Cincinnati, 
which in some of the states, notably New York, endures 



LT. RUSSELL S RESPONSE. 47 

to this day, and this, substantially, is the foundation of the 
legion. The points of difference I have not thought it 
needful to trace, so like is the child to the parent. The 
son is more robust than the sire in the same proportion 
that the republic at the civil war was of greater extent, 
of larger population, of more varied resources than the 
united colonies at the time of the Revolution. But we 
are less ceremonious. I read with profound interest of 
the travail attending the induction of Chancellor Living- 
stone, in New York. 

The audience being prepared, " and the kettledrums 
and trumpets having already occupied their places," the 
standard bearer of the society, in his ancient continental 
uniform, escorted by four members, also in uniform, took 
his position on the right by the dais. Then entered the 
masters of the ceremony, the members two by two, the 
secretary carrying the original constitution, bound in light 
blue satin ; the treasurer and deputy treasurer bearing 
white satin cushions, on which were displayed the eagles 
and diplomas of the new members; the vice-president, 
and last of all the president. At his entrance the stand- 
ard saluted and the kettledrums and trumpets gave a 
flourish until he had taken his chair of state on the dais, 
when the standard was again raised, and the members, 
who till now had remained standing, seated themselves. 
The candidates having been then introduced and duly 
admonished, the president and all the members arose, and 
the former, covering with much form and ceremony, 
admitted the new members into the society. 

To a time within the remembrance of the youngest of 
us, the survivors of the Cincinnati appeared at the annual 
dinner upon Independence day with cocked hat and side- 



48 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

arms. I find no mention of that curious and formidable 
weapon, the spontoon, the history and uses of which have 
been fully narrated and described to this commandery by 
the learned antiquary it is fortunate to number among its 
members. A cocked — even a half-cocked — hat would 
scarce become the now close-cropped survivors of the 
rebellion who are admitted to this commandery. We 
enter not two by two, but as Macbeth's company dis- 
persed when, because of a spirit too many, his majesty 
was out of spirits. We stand not upon the order of our 
coming, but come at once. I tremble for the fate of a 
white satin cushion in the hands of our treasurer. Hand- 
some as our chancellor would look in the blue and buttons 
of the war days, I fear that he, as the rest of us who have 
broadened with increasing years, would burst the narrow 
confines and be left naked to the world. We have no 
standards, no drums, and modesty commands that we 
leave our trumpets, even those in tolerable order, unblown. 
We are, it may be confessed, not as grave and reverend as 
our fathers. 

The kindest feeling existed toward the French officers 
who had taken part in the long struggle, and the desire 
was general in the continental ranks that their generous 
assistance should be formally remembered. They were 
gladly admitted upon equal footing to the order of the 
Cincinnati, and the chevaliers of France were proud to 
wear at the court of Louis the badge that distinguished 
them as soldiers who had fought for freedom in the new 
world. Most of them peiished in the French revolution 
or the subsequent wars, but Lafayette was spared to a 
green old age, and bequeathed the badge, eloquent of his 
companionship with Washington, as " a rich legacy unto 



LT. RUSSELL S RESPONSE. 



49 



his issue." To French taste the order was indebted for 
the design of the badge, and to French artists for its ex- 
ecution. The American officers proposed a simple medal. 
The badge adopted consisted of a golden eagle dis- 
played, its talons grasping golden olive branches, the 
green enameled leaves of which were wreathed about the 
bald head of the symbolic bird. Upon its breast was an 
oval shield bearing the familiar legends and picturing the 
no less familiar scene of Cincinnatus quitting the plow to 
serve the republic. 

It is curious now to read how a people, jealous of the 
liberty which the breasts adorned with this badge were 
freely bared in battle to secure, were induced to look 
with distrust upon an organization animated by the pur- 
est patriotism. ^-Edamus Burke, one of the justices of 
South Carolina, led in a pamphlet war against the Cincin- 
nati upon the ground that it was establishing an heredi- 
tary privileged military class that, like the Janizaries, would 
make and unmake governments. The attack was bitter. 
Washington wrote to Hamilton that he was willing that 
the hereditary feature of the order should be abandoned^ 
and, if it were not for the benevolent feature, that it 
should be wholly disbanded. But the men who starved at 
Valley Forge and stormed at Yorktown were not to be 
dismayed by senseless clamor. The Cincinnati survived 
and the country flourished, unvexed by a military class, 
whose sole privilege it was to support and sustain the 
comrades who would have looked in vain for aid and 
comfort from the new generation. 

Franklin, distinguised as the earliest of our ministers 
to France and as one of the warmest friends of the 
suffering " continentals in their ragged regimentals,"* 



50 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

was inimical to the order. The ribbon of the Illi- 
nois commandery adorns the breast of a Washburne, 
who, like Franklin, was a minister to France, and a 
McCagg, who labored long and zealously to stanch the 
wounds and bathe the fevered brows of our stricken com- 
panions. The first president of the Cincinnati was the 
first president of the republic. Monroe was eligible to 
membership ; no doubt was a member. The roster of 
the District of Columbia commandery of the Loyal 
Legion bears the name of Arthur. The Ohio roll is 
headed by Hayes. Upon the rolls of our own comman- 
dery is seen the name of Grant. And who shall say that 
with such glad acclaim as followed his tempestuous 
sweep within the shadow of the Blue Ridge and up the 
banks of the Shenandoah, narrowing to its source, the 
republic shall not yet bestow its highest and most coveted 
honor upon one held in high regard the nation through, 
but specially endeared to the comrades gathered here to • 
night .'' 

As with the Cincinnati so with " the child of the Cin- 
cinnati," the groundwork of this order of the Loyal Legion 
is not ambition, not self-laudation, nothing but good fel- 
lowship at its best. We cannot remake the history of the 
stupendous war in which we served our allotted part. 
That was fought out in the face of the world and is a 
memory for all time. 

" How many ages hence, 
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over 
In states unborn and accents yet unknown ! " 

Bound together by the remembrance of our peril and 
our toil, we may meet and in our " flowing cups freshly 
remember " the comrades that were and are not. It is 



LT. RUSSELL S RESPONSE. 



51 



something to reflect that we who were spared amid the 
carnage that was awful to look upon may, as one by one 
we are summoned by the angel that passed us in the days 
of bloodshed, feel as we fall to rise no more that the 
kindly hand of one who knew that we had suffered and 
struggled in the stormy days of the rebellion, will be 
laid upon our bier with a touch at once tender and historic. 
It is something to remember as we grow in age that to 
those safest and surest custodians of our memory, those 
kindest critics of our career, our children, we may trans- 
mit the symbol of this order, and by connecting it with 
the story of the Cincinnati, direct their thoughts to the 
days when the republic was formed, as well as to the time, 
in which we bore apart, that it was saved. It is a symbol 
less significant of a conquered rebellion than of a coun- 
try spared the belittlement of artificial barriers and en- 
abled to move on majestically to that mighty destiny 
assigned it by the prophetic voice of the nations, that is 
surely the voice of God. 



52 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 



Eighth Toast, " The Volunteers." 

" Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths; 
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments." 

Response by 

,^bt.-;l3ng.-(L^cn. |olju '€. ^Ubrriiiqc, "iii *. Dols. 

Mr. President, — In peace, the United States has no 
army. In war, its army is the volunteer, invincible, irre- 
sistible. I would not speak lightly of that little army, of 
which the guest of the evening is a distinguished officer. 
But, sir, his star rose not on the battle-field of that little 
army; volunteers wove the garlands coronating his brow. 

Considering the vastness of our domain, the extent of 
our sea coast, the length of our inland boundary lines, 
the millions of our population, and -all the varied and 
multiplied interests of the nation, that little army is in- 
sufficient to do the guard duty on the grand march of our 
civilization. Compared with the standing armies of the 
old world it is insignificant, in numbers. The nations of 
Europe keep up expensive military establishments, to 
support government, to keep the peace, and to fight their 
battles. In the United States, public intelligence solidifies 
the government, public virtue preserves public order, and 
volunteer patriotism fights, to the death, the enemies of 
our country. 

The volunteer has enlisted in every war. His tramp 
has been heard upon every battle-field. His blood has 
consecrated every battle- flag. His song of victory has 
risen above the wild roar of war. His valor has vindi- 
cated the nation's honor. His gallantry has shed luster 
upon American arms. 



GEN. BEVERIDGe's RESPONSE. 53 



In 1776 volunteers rallied around the new banner of 
liberty, and presented the infant republic to the God of 
battles, to receive the baptism of blood. Bunker Hill, 
Monmouth, Brandywine and Yorktown are historic battle- 
fields of the revolution. 

In 1812 their guns echoed on land, lake and sea. Lake 
Erie, Lundy's Lane, Plattsburgh and New Orleans still 
echo and reecho their shouts of victory. 

In 1846 Mexican soil trembled beneath their mighty, 
mighty tread. They garnered the harvest of death and 
victory on the field of Buena Vista. Amid smoke and 
carnage they ascended the steeps of Cerro Gordo. In 
quest of glory they scaled the heights of Chapultepec. 
And the morning sun in that far-off valley kissed the stars 
and stripes floating in triumph over the halls of the 
Montezumas. 

In 186 1 a million of men marched in defense of our 
country. The South was their battle-field. "The Union 
now and forever " was their battle-cry. The flag of our 
fathers was their inspiration to do, to dare and to die. No 
treacherous Indian, no effeminate Mexican, no stubborn 
Englishman was their foeman, but their own countrymen 
met them face to face on the field, struggling for the mas- 
tery. When volunteer meets volunteer " then comes the 
tug of war." 

The South, with a soul worshiping the god of slavery, 
with a heart filled with bitterness and hate, and with a 
feeling of superiority, fought with reckless desperation. 
The North, animated by love of country, inspired by the 
example of their fathers, trusting in the justice of their 
cause, and relying on the God of battles, fought with a 
courage and bravery unequaled in the annals of time. 



54 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

The gallantry of the South may well challenge our 
admiration, but the heroism of the North prevailed. The 
stars and bars went down forever before the stripes and 
stars. Volunteers forced an unconditional surrender at 
Donelson. Volunteers stood like a wall of fire on Malvern 
Hill. Volunteers breasted the storm of death at Vicks- 
burg. Volunteers stood like a rock at Chickamauga. 
Volunteers made historic the field of Gettysburgh. Vol- 
unteers, under Sherman, marched from Chattanooga, 
through Atlanta, by Resaca, down to the sea. Volunteers, 
under Grant, marched by 'the left flank from the Rappa- 
hannock, through the bloody Wilderness, by Spotsylvania 
Court House, and Coal Harbor, down to the investment of 
Richmond. 

When Sheridan rode all the way from Winchester that 
day, it was volunteers he gathered up with the rapidity 
of lightning, and hurled with the force of a thunder- 
bolt upon the foe, snatching victory from defeat. With 
volunteers he wrought magnificent victory at Five Forks. 
Volunteers he threw in front of the retreating army of 
Virginia, and compelled the surrender of Lee at 
Appomattox. 

Of this grand army of volunteers many have fought 
their last battle. " They sleep their last sleep," some in 
unknown graves in southern soil, some in national ceme- 
teries, and some in our own churchyards. Let them 
sleep in peace and glory. We, comrades, by the benefi- 
cence of a kind Providence, still live within the folds of 
the flag we defended, partaking of the fruits of our vic- 
tory, and basking in the sunshine of liberty. 

" Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths, 
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments." 



GEN. STILES RESPONSE. 



55 



Ninth Toast, "The Foot Soldier." 

" From bills to bayonets, from bows to breech-loaders,— 
The bulwark of the Anglo-Saxon race." 

Response bv 

^bt.-§rig.-(L^cn. |. S. Utiles, ^l. $. Dols. 

The foot soldier! What shall I say of him.? He with 
the knapsack, the canteen and haversack, with the roll of 
blankets, the cartridge box and forty rounds, and " traps," 
but on foot, without a horse. What can I say of him ? 
Think of the ease with which astride a fearless horse he, 
could advance upon " the relentless foe; " but think also 
of the difficulty (if the foe should insist upon it) of gel- 
ting back to the neighborhood of the commanding officer 
[laughter] on foot. [Great laughter.] 

Think of " Winchester twenty miles away " and Sheri- 
dan on foot. [A voice " He'd a got there."] Yes, /le 
would. [Great applause.] Think of old John Brown, 
who left us at Harper's Ferry "before the war," who, with 
his " knapsack strapped upon his back," is still marching 
on. He is without a horse ; he is footing it. And then 
those brave hearts who left us from the field of battle, 

" Whose good swords are rust, 
Whose bodies are dust, 
Whose souls are with the saints, we trust," 

now in "the great beyond; "gone to that bourne from 
whence no traveler returns, the undiscovered country, 
concerning which we hear so much yet know so little' 
They go to make up that " great army of the Lord," who, 



56 BANQUETS TO l.T.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

in their long white robes, with crowns upon their heads 
and harps in their hands, and singing hallelujahs, are 
marching on, all foot soldiers. According to the best in- 
formation we can get, there is not a horse in all that 
country. [Great laughter.] 

" First there came a hoss company, and then a foot com- 
pany and then some big guns. Then the Confeds formed 
a streak of fight, and you uns formed a streak of fight, 
and fit and fit, and knocked down Uncle Jo's smoke 
house, and spilt my ash hopper, th't I wouldn't a tuck two 
dollars for; and there ain't no use in war no how." 
[Laughter.] 

Will the time come when, as the old east Tennessee 
woman put it, there will be "no use in war, no how".? 
Let us hope for it, however far away; for the time when 
"glorious war," with all its "pomp and circumstance," 
will be a thing of the past ; when, indeed, " swords shall 
be beaten into plow shares and spears into pruning hooks." 
[Applause.] It will come; but, whether soon or late, 
while we live we may relight our camp fires, fight our bat- 
tles over again and again, sing our army songs, and when 
too old for this, "shoulder our crutches and show how 
fields were won." Never ought to be, never can be for- 
gotten, the long, weary, yet glorious struggle which gave 
permanence to our republic, freedom to a race, made our 
Loyal Legion organization possible, gave us to-night's 
cheer, and the name of Sheridan to adorn almost every 
chapter of its history. [Applause.] 

Nearly twenty years have come and gone since " Johnny 
came marching home." How like a dream! Will you, 
with me, redream the dream, " companions of the blue .-* " 



GEN. STILKS RESPONSE. 57 

" The quick farewell, the stubborn drill, 
The revel of the camp, 
The midnight march, the lonely watch. 
The news from home by evening's lamp; 
The tented field, the watch fire's light. 
The chances of to-morrow's fight; 
The last array, the battle's breath. 
The surging waves of utter death: 
The rescued flag, the wild retreat, the hospital of pain." 

Rise, companions, to your feet; with me redream and 
live, and drink it o'er again, again, again. [Great ap- 
plause.] 



58 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 



Tenth Toast, " Horse and Artillery." 

Naked without the one, armies would be sightless without the 
other. 

Response by 

Jrirst I't. ilitbavb $. (Lutbill, i!;l. ^. Ools. 

The terse and epigrammatic sentiment which accom- 
panies the toast I am called upon to respond to, suggests 
to the mind Samson after he, through the wiles of the 
treacherous Delilah, had been deprived at once of his 
hair, his strength and his eyes. 

Fancy the condition of Samson, blind, bound and 
substantially naked, in the midst of his exultant enemies, 
and you get an idea of an army destitute of cavalry and 
artillery. Samson had, you will remember, been to the 
Phillistines more terrible than an army with bummers. 
Single handed and alone he tackled a lion (whether it was 
the British lion or not, we are not informed), rubbed his 
nose in the dirt, twisted his tail, broke his back, and threw 
his carcass out of his way, for mere pastime, as it were. And 
on another occasion, in order to destroy the supplies of his 
enemies in the Shenandoah Valley of that war, he caught 
three hundred foxes, and took fire brands and turned tail 
to tail, and put a fire brand in the midst between the two 
tails, and turned them loose in the corn fields of the 
enemy. It was a little rough on the farming community, 
but, as our distinguished guest will tell you, it was neces- 
sary to do it in order to make them keep out of the valley. 
Oh ! I tell you when General Samson had his cavalry and 
artillery (that is, his eyes and his hair) with him, he 



LT. TUTHILL's response. 59 



was a holy terror. Between you and me, I don't go much 
on that story of his killing a thousand men with the jaw- 
bone of an ass. I am inclined to believe there is some 
mistake about that. I don't recall any occasion in our 
war when an entire and complete ass, jaw-bone and all, 
even when bearing a Major General's commission, killed 
anybody. We had plenty of asses, thanks to a gov- 
ernment which seemed determined to give each of them a 
chance to see how many rebels he could kill. They all 
tried their jaw bones on the enemy, but I think you will 
agree with me that I am vindicated by history in saying 
that, with us, asses were not a success. Therefore I am 
incredulous about that jaw-bone story. 

Poor old Samson, betrayed by a siren, and bereft of 
his hair, which was his reserve power, and may be taken 
to symbolize the artillery of an army, and also of his eyes, 
which symbolize its cavalry, was about as helpless as 
even the Philistines could wish to see him. His only 
chance then to " get in his work " was to corral them in a 
house and pull it down on them, and you remember (I 
know I am addressing a gathering of rare Biblical schol- 
ars), that was the identical tactical movement adopted by 
the General. 

But let us be serious. I came here to-night, gentlemen 
mtending to give you all a few "pointers " on artillery and 
cavalry fighting. I thought General Sheridan might, ere 
he assumes command of the army, want to hear from me 
on these subjects, you know. 

I thought I would tell him, in reference to the artillery, 
that I agree with De Quincey, in the opinion that the only 
hope of a perpetual peace is in the improvement of the ar- 
tillery. The idea is that after awhile thi.s will be made of so 



6o BANQUETS TO I,T.-OEN. SHERIDAN. 

perfect and deadly a kind that both sides, being suppHed 
alike, will be afraid to fight, for a fight will mean the total 
annihilation of both. Are we not approaching that time? 
It is well known that in modern wars the artillery has cut 
much more of a figure than in ancient times. Why, at 
Crecy the English had only three small guns, and it was 
not until the time of Gustavus Adolphus, in the first half 
of the 17th century, when the great Swedish General, on 
many a hotly contested field, conquered the before invin- 
cible armies of the Emperor Ferdinand under command 
of Wallenstein and Tilly, that any systematic use was 
made of artillery by the armies of Europe. In modern 
wars how great a figure the artillery has cut, I need not 
say. To the soldier, to the reader of history, I need only 
name the brilliant victories of Napoleon at Marengo and 
Wagram, secured by the skillful use of massed artillery; or 
the more recent battles of the Franco-Prussian war — Weis- 
senburg, Gravelotte, Beaumont, Sedan and Metz — which 
were a series of great artillery combats. 

Who that was at Malvern Hill does not recall how the 
repeated assaults of the rebel infantry were repulsed by a 
grand battery of 150 guns under Gen. Barry, posted on 
the heights to the west of the plateau.? Who that was at 
Chancellorsville, at Gettysburgh, or in front of Atlanta, 
July 22, does not recall the grand, the inestimable service 
of the artillery, pouring death and destruction into the 
flushed and proudly advancing hosts of the enemy, driv- 
them back and saving those great battles and our country's 
cause ? 

Of the cavalry, what shall I say in the presence of him 
whom history will pronounce one of the greatest cavalry 
commanders the world has ever known? In no idle com- 



LT. tuthill's response. 6i 



pliment do I say it, but if I have correctly read the annals 
of war, there have lived only a few men who deserve to 
be mentioned beside our own Sheridan as a commander 
of cavalry. These, I would say, are Alexander the Great 
who on the field of Arbela, himself leading the Macedo- 
nian horse, displayed that same genius to comprehend? 
that quickness to execute, which was so noticeable in the 
series of brilliant, dazzling victories achieved by our 
Philip the Great, in all of his campaigns. Gustavus, the 
Swede, was a great cavalry general; so to, was Cromwell, 
and the Carthaginian, Hannibal; Frederick the Great is 
said to have raised the cavalry service to the culminating 
point of glory. He formulated rules of cavalry tactics 
which secured him and those who, since his time have ob- 
served them, many great victories. One of them was this: 
" Every officer of cavalry will have always present to his 
mind that there are but two things required to beat the 
enemy; first, to charge him with the greatest possible 
speed and force, and second to outflank him." 

The subject, comrades, is too large for the limits of the 
occasion. The story of war has no more thrilling periods 
than those which tell of the achievements in all ages, of 
warriors on horseback, knights, as formerly they were 
called. The daring exploits, the glorious victories of 
our own cavalry, under the command of our Cus- 
ters, Merritts, Wilsons, Kilpatricks, Griersons, and most 
glorious of all, Philip H. Sheridan, have furnished 
poet, painter and historian themes for poem, picture and 
history, dazzling and glorious beyond their power to de- 
pict. The battle-fields of our cavalry I need not recall. 
So long as history endures and the memory of glorious 
deeds remains, so long will the name and fame of our 



BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 



great cavalry leader, who is our honored guest to-night, 
be familiar as household words. And so long will the 
grand achievements of the cavalry he commanded be 
remembered and admiringly recounted. 



MAj. Huntington's response. 63 



Eleventh Toast, " Sweethearts of '61." 

" Tout pour elle; 
Rien sans elle, 
Mais qui est elle?" 

Response by 

ibt.-Paj. pcnrg %, lluiitinciton, late m. ^. ^1. 

There hangs in an European museum a shield of the 
middle ages, which bears for device the sentiment of the 
toast to which I speak. Plainly it was once the buckler 
of a young knight just starting out in quest of adventures. 
According to the romantic fashion of the time such 
laurels as he should win must be laid at the feet of some 
woman, and as yet he had not loved. So he took this 
quaint motto : 

"All for her; 

Nothing without her, 

But who is she?" 

Of the thousands of American youth who answered 
their country's call now more than twenty years ago, the 
greater number were like the young knight, fancy free. 
Few of them, I dare say, were poetical, and that none 
bore shields I am sure. But there was a spot less con- 
spicuous whereon to dedicate the young patriot's worthy 
deeds to the unknown fair. Either in graceful phrase or 
wordless symbol on every heart was stamped the legend 
of the shield. 

And what courage it inspired, from what temptations it 
delivered ! In all our armies was there a man capable of 
loyalty to a feminine ideal who would not rather face the 



64 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

enemy than turn from him to face his mistress? A new 
chivalry was born, fairer than that which Cervantes smiled 
away, a chivalry which placed upon the head of the queen 
of love and beauty, not the tawdry coronet of the tourna- 
ment, but a diadem set with the undiminished stars of the 
republic. 

To most of us the answer to the young knight's ques- 
tion has been given. Some of us are still waiting for it. 
From none, let us hope, will it be withheld. Peace be 
with those, enfolded by no mortal arms, who with dying 
eyes, on stricken fields, beheld their mistress in the jeal- 
ous goddess of the Capitol. 

But in the laud of maidens we must not forget the 
praise of wives. Far happier was the lot of the waiting 
sweetheart, who had but to welcome the returning victor 
and share his spoil of glory, than hers who in spirit fol- 
lowed the drum and moistened with her tears the rugged 
way her march-worn husband trod. 

Among the immortal pictures left us by the greatest of 
poets, there is none more beautiful than that of the wife 
of Hector with the young Astyanax in her hand, as 

" Pensive she stood on Ilion's towery height, 
Beheld the war and sickened at the sight; 
There her sad eyes in vain her lord explore, 
Or weep the wounds her bleeding country bore." 



LT. APPLETON's response. 65 



The list of regular toasts and responses having been 
finished, the Presiding Officer rose and said : We have 
with us as a guest, a distinguished soldier, a member of 
the Wisconsin Commandery, and at one time its com- 
mander. I know all present would be delighted to hear 
from him. 

I propose the health of Col. Bean. 

Col. I. M. Bean, of Milwaukee, then responded. 

His remarks being without notes he has been unable tO' 
give them for publication. 

The Presiding Officer then announced the 

First Volunteer Toast, "The Untoasted Armies.'* 
Response by 
^;irst ft. S>umucl .applrton, ^l. §. ilols. 

Mr. Commander and Gentlemen: For once our 
accomplished toast-master has misused the king's Eng- 
lish. He speaks of me as replying to a volunteer toast. 
I protest this time at being classed among the volunteers, 
and desire to take my place among the drafted men. 

I had supposed the only duty I should have to perform 
here to-night would be the strictly military one of supply- 
ing myself with tiiree days' cooked rations, and after I had 
eaten and was full, wending my way homeward in a man- 
ner as little prejudicial to good order and military disci- 
pline as the circumstances of the case would permit. 
Since my attention has been called to this toast I have 
attempted to call to mind what army has been neglected 
to-night. At this late hour I may be excused if my recol- 



66 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

lection is somewhat hazy. When my friend, Surgeon 
Hyde, responded for the navy, I remember splicing the 
main-brace in honor of that gallant but somewhat atten- 
uated body. In imagination I have to-night fought with 
the Army of the Cumberland from Chicamaugua to Nash- 
ville, and have cut my way from Atlanta to the sea with my 
sword and Sherman's, and at times have felt as if I were the 
entire Army of the Potomac. I have thought of all these, 
and have concluded that these are older armies, not 
better, and that the one to which the toast refers is one 
of younger growth, the Army of Northern Illinois in the 
campaign of '77. 

The Army of Northern Illinois! What a mighty sub- 
ject! What a galaxy of heroic names gathered from 
the choicest of this commandery ! Ducat, Strong, 
Swain, Knox, Morgan — time would fail me to mention 
all. What a campaign ! One unending line of victories, 
from the battle of the viaduct to the capture of Braid- 
wood. I was at that time winning my militia spurs as an 
aid on the staff of General Ducat. I remember, as if it 
were but yesterday, the morning the expeditionary corps 
left Chicago for Braidwood. It was a beautiful July 
morning. All nature seemed at peace, and it was only in 
the hearts of wicked men that one could find thoughts of 
war and bloodshed. For this beautiful idea I am in- 
debted to the unpublished poems of Major Morgan. I 
remember the conversation that morning between General 
Ducat, the commander of the expedition, and General 
Drum, then on our distinguished commander's staff. 

"General," says General Drum, "you are about to meet 
a cruel and sanguinary foe." I am making history here 
to-night, and I cannot now recall his language without 



LT. APPLETON'S RESPONSE. 67 



again experiencing, in a somewhat mitigated form, the 
chill which then traversed my spinal column. " You are 
about to meet a cruel and sanguinary foe ; be prudent, be 
vigilant, you have with you the flower of the manhood of 
Chicago." I looked around me. I saw the sweet and 
rosy blossoms of the staff. I remembered myself, and I 
knew Drum was right. 

On an occasion like this I cannot recount in full the 
history of that campaign ; how the First, under Swain and 
Knox, charged ; how Morgan, chief of artillery, deployed 
the two guns of the Joliet battery, as if it were the whole 
of the artillery reserve of Gettysburgh, and how the com- 
missary department flourished. Would you know more of 
it; is it not recorded in the archives at Springfield.? 

It was my pleasing and grateful duty to receive the 
surrender of the mayor of Braidwood. Our distinguished 
commander, in his account of the surrender of Lee, tells 
us that he purchased, with a twenty-dollar gold piece that 
he carried during the war in his pocket, as handy to have 
in case of capture, the table on which Lee signed the 
articles of capitulation. I bought no table at Braidwood. 
I had no twenty-dollar gold piece in my pocket ; I had 
no thought of needing it. The national guard of Illinois 
dies, but never surrenders. 

Mr. Commander, to one of us it is a matter of pride 
that with the Army of the Potomac he stayed Lee's vic- 
torious march at Gettysburgh, to another that he aided in 
sending Early hurrying down the valley, to a third that 
with Thomas he stood like a rock at Chicamauga. Each 
of us has his particular cause for pride and congratula- 
tion. We meet to-night, a band of brothers, on a broad 
plane of equality. But you may notice a select few, to 



68 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 

whom the rest of the commandery seem to look with an 
especial reverence. It is not on account of their high 
rank, for some of them are greeted as captains ; it is not 
on account of their age, for some are of the youngest 
present. You look around in vain for the cause. 

Long may they remain among us, and when in after 
years we shall be gathered to our fathers, and the young 
Morgans and Huntingtons and Giles meet here and drink 
to our memories, it will not be one of the least of their 
boasts that their fathers were of the Army of Northern 
Illinois, and the campaign of '77. 



GEN. stout's response. 69 



After the volunteer toasts had been read and responses 
delivered, calls were made for 

who responded : 

Commander : This call was not anticipated by me. I 
knew that regular toasts had been prepared, and certain 
members appointed to respond to them by a committee, 
but I did not suppose that any other speeches would be 
called for, so 1 am not prepared — am taken by surprise. 
Instead of a speech I will tell you a little story: 

For some months after the close of the late civil war, 
our old comrade, General John M. Palmer, was in com- 
mand of the District of Kentucky, with his headquarters 
at Lou-isville, and his vigilant and careful administration, 
and his protection of the good people against guerrillas, 
and the lawlessness generally prevailing at that time, had 
endeared him personally to all good citizens. And it be- 
came known that another old comrade, now no more, the 
late General Jeff C. Davis, was about to relieve him of 
his command. The old soldiers, and many other friends, 
determined to give him a banquet, and it was done, and 
General Davis and quite a large number of invited guests 
were in attendance, and when all had become happy 
under the influence of the good things of the bountiful 
board, and toasts and speeches were in order. General 
Palmer, in response to a general call, told the following 
story: 

I only wish I could tell it as he told it, but I will not 
attempt to use his language. For some weeks before the 



5ANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN 



commencement of the great campaign against Atlanta, 
the Fourteenth Corps lay at Ringgold, Ga., in command 
of Palmer, and confronted by a portion of the rebel army 
on the south, and General Davis commanded one of the 
divisions of that corps. Officers and men had little to 
occupy or amuse them. The pickets of both armies kept 
up the usual firing, and the commanding officers of divi- 
sions, brigades and regiments acquired the habit of riding 
up to corps headquarters every day to hear and discuss 
the news, and General Davis among the rest. He was 
an old line democrat, "dyed in the wool," and a warm 
political partisan. Palmer, on the other hand, was a re- 
publican equally ardent and aggressive. They naturally 
fell into the discussion of political questions every day 
that passed. Davis took the ground that the political 
doctrines of Palmer would inevitably lead to a consoli- 
dated central government — a despotism in which the 
rights of states and people would be swallowed up and 
utterly obliterated — that such a government would be in- 
tolerable to the people of this country — in fact to any 
people that had any ideas of liberty. 

Palmer on his part argued that Davis' political doc- 
trines would lead to the destruction of all governmental 
organization, to anarchy, the secession of all the states 
from each other, and the result would be the ruin and 
destruction of our great nation. 

These discussions waxed warmer each day, and those 
who witnessed them became nervous and anxious lest 
these gallant soldiers and true gentlemen should in the 
heat of debate give, the one to the other, some intolerable 
insult. 

One day when the debate had become high, and both 



GEN. STOUT S RESPONSE. 



parties much excited, a staff officer came in to report that 
the enemy had driven in our pickets on a division or 
brigade front. Palmer paused just long enough to order 
that the pickets should be reinforced, and then resumed 
the discussion, which seemed to wax even warmer for the 
short interruption. 

In quite a short time another report came in that our 
pickets had been driven in at another point. He stopped 
just long enough to repeat the former order, and went 
ahead with his argument, and the debate became danger- 
ously bitter, and finally still another report came in, and 
the firing on our whole front became so spirited that a 
general attack seemed to be actually made. Palmer 
stopped and seemed to reflect a moment, and then ex- 
tending his right hand in the direction of the enemy, 
said with great emphasis, "General Davis, your friends 
over there are becoming damned troublesome; take your 
division and drive them off;" and Palmer added here, "I 
must say to General Davis' credit that he did the duty 
assigned him with great promptness." 



72 BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 



The toasts and responses having been completed, the 
Presiding Officer read a number of letters and telegrams 
of regret, among them the following: 

San Antonio, Texas, January 31, 18S3. 
Horatio L. Wait, Chairman. 

Dear Sir, — I have duly received the notice you sent 
me that the Coramandery of the Loyal Legion of the 
United States, for the State of Illinois, has resolved to 
give a dinner to Lieut. -General Sheridan, in celebration 
of his fifty-second birthday, on the 6th day of March 
next. 

I regret infinitely that the state of my health will not 
permit me to return to Chicago by that time. This regret 
is increased for the reason that the same cause prevented 
me from being present on a like occasion in March, 1882. 
If these celebrations are to be kept up, as 1 trust they 
may be, and the winter blasts continue to drive me from 
Chicago, I shall appeal to the Lieut. -General to postpone 
his birthday for sixty days, in order that I may be present. 
Such is my admiration for General Sheridan as a soldier, 
citizen and man, that I don't want to omit any occasion 
to do him honor. 

Only fifty-two years! and how much he has added to 
the military glory of the country, for lie has fought more 
battles than he can count years, and never once trailed 
the banner of the Republic in defeat. His reputation as 
a great captain is not confined to our own country, but is 
world-wide. When I last met Prince von Bismarck in Ber- 
lin in 1877, the first question he asked me was about 



LETTERS OF REGRET. 73 

General Sheridan. After speaking of him in terms of the 
warmest personal friendship, I shall never forget his em- 
phatic expression, "that man has a great military head on 
his shoulders." 

Though I shall be deprived of the pleasure of being 
present at your celebration, I wish to associate myself 
with the commandery on the occasion, and to be con- 
sidered as attending the dinner in heart and spirit. 

Wishing all the comrades a successful celebration and 
a good time generally, 

I am very truly yours, 

E. B. Washburne. 



BANQUETS TO LT.-GEN. SHERIDAN. 



Headquarters Army of the United States, 

Washington, D. C, March 4, 1883. 
Horatio L. Wait, Chairman Committee M. O. L. L. 
U. S., Chicago. 

My Dear Sir, — I beg to acknowledge receipt by mail 
of your very kind invitation for me — to the banquet you 
give General Sheridan, in Chicago, the evening of the 
6th instant. 

I assure you that nothing could be more pleasant than 
to share in such a banquet, but although this is Sunday, 
Congress is still in session, and will not adjourn till noon 
to-day; there are some bills still pending which concern 
the army, and it would be positively wrong for me to be 
absent for some days. 

I regret very much that this banquet should have hap- 
pened at this busy period, for I would have made unusual 
sacrifices to have been with you. You probably know 
that for some days after congress has adjourned, even the 
members themselves hardly know what has been done; 
then comes our duty to find out, and to carry into effect 
what laws have been passed. 

I have already telegraphed to Generals Sheridan and 
Strong to the same effect. 

With great respect, your friend, 

W. T. Sherman. 



LETTERS OF REGRET. yr 



War Department, 
Washington, January 29, 18S3. 
Dear ^/>,— Acknowledging the receipt of your notifica- 
tion of the intention of our commandery to give a dinner 
to General Sheridan on March 6th, I regret to say that it 
is not at all probable that I can be present, much as I 
would like to join in any testimonial of respect and regard 
to the General. 

I am very respectfully yours, 

Robert T. Lincoln. 
Horatio I,. W^ait, Chairman of Committee. 

This finished the regular order of the banquet, and the 
companions and their guests left their seats, and gathering 
together, joined in the familiar songs of the commandery 
till the small hours of the morning. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




013 708 652 9 '^ 



